The Hitchhiker's Guide to Friends
by DeathbyChiasmus
Summary: Joey, Chandler, and a very pregnant Rachel accidentally strand themselves in an unfamiliar universe of Babel Fishes and talking doors. The other three freak out trying to find their missing friends. Crossover with The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
1. The Course of Time Itself

Obligatory Disclaimer: _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy Series_ is originally by Douglas Adams. Bright, Crane, and Kauffman are the creators of "Friends." Characters and settings used without permission, but I'm absolutely not profiting at all from this, so please don't sue me. I have no money and I'm knee-deep in debt from college.

Prefatory Comments: This fanfic, for me, has basically been an exercise in causality. I simply began with the premise of _something very different_ in Monica's secret closet and started writing out the resulting altered reality. However, I didn't simply intend to derail the chain of events: I also wanted to find out what effect my changes would have on some of the focuses of Season Eight, like Rachel's baby and Joey's feelings for Rachel. As a result, the plotline isn't just a brand-new linear sequence of events, where a new element takes "Friends" in a bizarre and alien direction; it's also a way of viewing familiar elements through a new lens, seeing (for instance) how Ross' relationship with Mona looks when it's viewed without Rachel around. This is a humorous fic, in keeping with the humorous tone of the two series it crosses over, so my task is first of all to make the new spin on things a funny one, but I'd like to think that the humor is the kind that resonates—that stems from the characters as human beings with unique personalities, hopes for the future, anxieties, all the things that make for good fiction in general. We tune in to "Friends" not just because it's funny, but because something in it resonates with our lives as human beings, and my goal is to make this a "Friends" fanfic in that sense.

Special Thanks to all my prereaders as they've come and gone, most notably Elaine, known as Scribonia on FFNet. Your helpful criticisms and encouragement to keep writing have been invaluable. Another Special Thanks goes out to Wikipedia, and to the guy who put up the online copy of the _Hitchhiker's Guide _trilogy that I would look at when necessary, for helping me with my fact-checking. Don't worry, I already own physical copies of the books, copies that I paid for and all that, but you can't use ctrl+F to search the text of a physical book for the things you want to fact-check. Incidentally, did you know that among mammals, the male duck-billed platypus is unique in having a poisonous sting?

Jackson Ferrell presents

A Jackson Ferrell production:

The Hitchhiker's Guide to "Friends"

* * *

Chapter 1: The Course of Time Itself

The key didn't even fit in the lock.

Chandler set it in the growing pile by his knees and quickly took another from the box. He tried to press it into the keyhole, and when that failed, he flipped it over and tried the other side. He was pressing so hard that when he heard the door to the apartment open and someone enter, the key jumped out of his hand.

"I wasn't trying to open your closet!" he called out, rushing into the kitchen. "I wasn't trying to open your closet! I swear!"

There in the kitchen was Rachel. Internally, Chandler breathed a sigh of relief—never mind the fact that he'd made a fool of himself, the important thing was that he wasn't in trouble.

"Wow," she remarked, "Monica really keeps you under her thumb, huh? Does she schedule when you can use the bathroom?"

"Well, I'm _not _allowed to use it from 0900 hours to 1000, and again from 1800 to 1830 for routine maintenance…" Chandler quipped. "Seriously, what brings you over?"

"Just thought I'd see what you and Monica are up to. She's not around, is she?" Chandler shook his head. "So, whatcha doin'?"

"Monica has a secret closet and she won't let me see what's in it."

"Why not?"

"I don't know! What could she possibly be hiding in here that I can't see?" Chandler jerked his thumb toward the green door.

"Must be something she'd be embarrassed about, right? Maybe…I don't know…incriminating photos, blackmail material? Must be _juicy_." Rachel grinned deviously and gave a slight bounce.

"But why would she keep it around at all then?" Chandler knelt back down by the door and returned to the box of keys. "But there was the time I was over at Richard's and I found that tape of her and Richard, um…you know. God, you don't think she's got a whole _closet _of Richard sex tapes?"

"No, that's just creepy. Monica's not creepy…except when it comes to tidiness, I mean…"

"Any other ideas?"

Rachel gave it some thought as Chandler continued his fruitless efforts with the lock. "Well, I saw a movie once where there a couple moved into a house with a locked door in the attic that was sealing off evil spirits. And then, when they found the key to the door and opened it, it released the ghosts and they wreaked havoc all through the house!" She shivered and patted her stomach instinctively. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather leave Monica's closet alone?"

"Truthfully, that's a lot less creepy than a closet full of old-boyfriend videotapes. I say bring on the haunting." Chandler tried another key in the lock, which failed. He addressed the closet: "But clearly you're not listening, are you?"

* * *

"Mona," Ross whispered, in the movie theater. "Do you ever feel like you ought to be at the hospital?"

"What? Ross, do you feel all right?"

"No—I feel fine, I feel perfectly healthy. I just suddenly got this feeling like I ought to be at the hospital."

"What could possibly be happening at the hospital that you'd need to be there? I mean, if you're feeling healthy…"

"Yeah, I know." Ross laughed nervously. "It makes no sense. Why would I want to be at some random hospital?"

But just for a moment, it had felt almost as if the course of time itself were suddenly altered.

* * *

"Are you under the sheet?" Phoebe called from her room. She put on some relaxing music and took a bottle of massage oil.

In Phoebe's living room, Monica lay on the massage table. "Yep, ready to go!" she confirmed, as Phoebe entered.

"Great." And the masseuse began to work her magic. "How does that feel?"

"Nice! Wow, Phoebe, you are good!"

"Well, not as if it needed saying, but thanks. It's not weird or anything?"

"No." Monica rested her face in the pillow. "Oooh…mmm, yeah…"

An odd look crossed Phoebe's face, unknown to her massage's recipient.

"Oh," Monica sighed. "Ohhh…oh, yeah! That's it! Oh!"

"Oh!" Phoebe suddenly echoed, quite loudly, flinching. Her palms shoved involuntarily into Monica's shoulder blade.

"Oww," Monica complained. "What was that all about?"

"I'm sorry. My hand slipped. Oh, that was a strange feeling."

"You're not mad at me for some reason and trying to give me a bad massage, are you?" Monica asked, sounding a bit annoyed that her friend wouldn't just address the issue to her face.

"No, no. It's nothing. Just that for a second there, it felt as if the course of time itself were suddenly altered. No big deal."

Of course, with Phoebe, this was a perfectly legitimate explanation, so the massage continued.

* * *

Back in his apartment, Joey was sitting around watching TV, when an odd expression suddenly came across his face. He furrowed his brow and concentrated, as if listening for something. He knew it made no sense, but it had just felt like he was supposed to be somewhere else, except that he couldn't remember any appointments or errands he had to run.

"Whoa," he said out loud. "What _was _that feeling? Almost like…like…the course of time itself was suddenly altered."

He paused. "Huh. Must have been something I ate."

After a moment's deliberation, he decided that the best solution would be to fix himself a sandwich; after all, even if it didn't fix the course of time, at least he'd have a sandwich. Turning his attention from the TV, he went to look inside the refrigerator.

The anchorpeople continued talking about investigations into some corporation's sketchy business practices—and in all honesty, it didn't really matter which corporation—when there were faint exclamations from off-camera: "Hey, who is that guy?" "We're filming right now, sir, you can't be on-set." "What's that he's wearing? How did he get past security?"

The female anchorperson glanced to the right, but proceeded hesitantly with the story. "A representative of Serious Electronics stated publicly that the company's policy—"

An old man dressed in the love child of a priestly robe and a bedsheet suddenly emerged on camera, standing in front of the news desk. "Excuse me. Are we filming?" He looked into the camera with anxious perplexity. "Arthur Dent, you haven't yet met me in this eventuality, but if you're listening, this is very pertinent to you. Or will be, at least. I think."

"Sir," said the male anchorperson, "we're currently on the air. You can't be here right now."

The man turned around, and the cameras recorded his back. "This is very important, though. My name is Slartibartfast, and I'm fairly certain there's been a high-level normality breach…"

"Unless you have clearance or authority to disrupt the broadcast, which I seriously doubt," the male anchorperson told him, "you'll have to leave the set now."

"But the fate of the known universe is at stake! Maybe!" protested Slartibartfast. "Arthur! Arthur Dent, listen to me!" A pair of security guards appeared and efficiently removed him from the camera. Joey peered up from the fridge door just in time to catch the end of it.

"Must have been some sort of student prank," remarked the female anchorperson with a smile.

"Those crazy kids. You never know what they'll come up with next. At any rate, a representative of Serious Electronics stated…"


	2. Skeletons in Monica's Closet?

Chapter 2: Skeletons in Monica's Closet?

* * *

Chandler was still working on the lock when there was a knock on the door. "It's me—Rachel," said the familiar voice from the other side.

"Coming," Chandler said, getting up from the secret closet and hurrying to the front door. He unlocked the door and let in Rachel, who was followed by her present roommate.

"Rachel told me about Monica's secret closet," Joey explained.

"So you came by to help get it unlocked?" Chandler asked.

"Nope." Joey pulled out a sandwich from his coat pocket and began unwrapping it. "Just to watch. I wanna see what's in there."

"If you help, we might get it open faster."

Joey took a big bite of his sandwich. "Not likely. I don't know the first thing about picking locks."

"Conveniently." Chandler sighed and turned his attention back to the door. "Say, Rachel, do you have a bobby pin?"

"What, don't you?" Joey asked.

"Sure," Rachel said, as Chandler pretended to ignore his ex-roommate's insult. "Here you go, hon. So you know how to pick locks with a hairpin?"

"Yes, I have a lot of practice, with all the hairpins I constantly keep on my person," he replied, rolling his eyes. Suddenly, he turned and pointed the pin victoriously at Joey. "Hah! Beat you to it!"

"Okaaay..." Joey took another bite of sandwich.

Chandler stuck the pin in the lock and set to working it. "I figure this can't be too hard, though. Fish around until it catches and just turn the lock."

"Oh boy," Rachel said excitedly. "We're going to find out Monica's big secret! In her secret closet!"

"I know," Joey replied with a grin.

"What do you suppose is in there?"

He chewed his sandwich thoughtfully. "Ooh. I'll bet it's Richard."

"Richard?"

Chandler looked up from the lock. "Why on earth would Monica be keeping Richard in there?"

"Well, I dunno…maybe you're not, you know, performing to standard, and she's keeping him around for her own pleasure."

"Okay, why does everyone keep suggesting Richard-related stuff?" Chandler asked in classic sarcastic tone. "Thank you so much for boosting my already fragile self-confidence. Look, she must be keeping something back there that she doesn't want anyone to know about."

"And Richard wouldn't fit in that category? It's not like Monica would just come up and tell you, 'Chandler, I've been keeping my ex-boyfriend in the closet by the bathroom so I can have mad passionate sex whenever I want.'"

"So how would she feed him?" Rachel asked.

There was a much-appreciated silence as Joey pondered this point and Chandler fiddled with the lock.

_You know, this stupid lock is not going anywhere_, Chandler thought. He took the pin out, put it back in upside-down, and set to jiggling it again. "Say, Joey." Joey looked up from his sandwich. "How's the hideously inappr—"

"Hmm?" Joey asked.

"Hideously what?" Rachel echoed.

"Um…hiiiideously inapplicable bobby pin working out?" He looked at the pin in the lock. "Not very well, actually." _Geez, I can't believe I almost asked Joey about his crush on Rachel in front of Rachel herself. Where did that thought even _come _from? It was almost like someone was putting words in my mouth!_

"So, any other suggestions?"

Rachel thoughtfully put a finger to her lips. "Did you try opening it with a credit card?"

"You know, I was just about to suggest that," Joey added.

"Not a bad idea." Chandler pulled out a credit card from his wallet. "So, Rachel, how's the baby coming?"

"Great, great! She's kicking now."

"Oh, when'd that start?"

"Last night! I felt the kicking and I went into Joey's room and woke him up so he could feel it too…"

"Yeah, it was pretty cool," Joey added.

Chandler glanced up at the two of them. He shared a knowing look with Joey, who, with an expression of great distress on his face, mouthed the words "except that I wasn't wearing any pants."

"Wow. Wow, that's…great, Rach. So it's all going smoothly?"

"Yeah, I haven't—"

"Shit!" There was a strange sucking sound. Chandler turned back to the door abruptly and thumped both of his palms against it.

"What?"

"Yeah, what?"

"I dropped it!" He knelt down and peered under the door. "Richard, if you're in there, could you pass me my credit card?"

"Hey, did either of you hear a sucking sound?" Joey asked.

Chandler ran a hand back through his hair. "Well, we're not playing basketball, so it couldn't possibly be my _game_…"


	3. The Tao of Rachel

Note: Special Thanks to everyone who's dropped a review for me so far. Glad to hear that you're all enjoying the story. The pacing's been a little slow so far, but this is where things start gettin' good. Your patience shall be rewarded!  
All right. Enough talk; let's rock.

* * *

Chapter 3: The Tao of Rachel

"Hurry, hurry, hurry," Chandler muttered, wrestling once again with the bobby pin in the lock. "At this rate, we're never going to get my credit card back before Monica gets home. I have no idea what I'm doing here."

"You're so nervous, you're trying too hard. Why not let me try?" Rachel asked.

Chandler and Joey looked at each other. "You've got some practice with this?" Chandler inquired.

"Not really, but I managed to get my dorm room open with a hairpin once when I locked myself out. So I just figure I'm more qualified…"

Chandler stood up, gestured with open hands toward the door.

"All right." Rachel knelt down, started working with the hairpin, and after a few patient moments, there was the familiar click of the door unlocking. "Yes! Score one for the pregnant woman!"

"Hold on, what was that?" Chandler held up a palm and waited as if listening intently. "Oh. I just felt my masculinity get a little smaller."

Rachel stood up, getting a hand from her friends. "Well, let's see what Monica's hidden secret is." She opened the door.

"Holy crap," Joey asked slowly, face contorted in bafflement, "what is that?"

The doorway swirled with a flat plane of colors, like the sheen of oil on water. The whole spectrum of visible light rippled from edge to edge of the door frame.

"So do you think Monica knows that this"—Chandler gestured at the psychedelic doorway—"is back here?"

"It must be what she was hiding," Joey pronounced. "There's no telling what could come through that thing if you didn't keep it locked up!"

"You think it's a portal?" Rachel asked.

"I know it's a portal! I've seen enough bad sci-fi to know a portal when I see one!"

"I can't believe what I'm seeing," Rachel breathed.

The three of them stared at the doorway. Clearly, the two men were having trouble believing what they were seeing as well.

"So it's a portal, huh?" Chandler asked.

"Yup," Joey affirmed.

Chandler stuck his hand into the plane of swirling colors and almost immediately jerked it back in pain. "Ow! Oh, my hand! Son of a…!" He hunched over and cradled his arm. "It disintegrated my hand! Ooh—ow, ow…"

He paused, looking up at Rachel and Joey, who frowned back at him as if to say, "We are neither fooled nor amused by your irrelevant antics." Although this would be taking some licenses with Joey's vocabulary, who would more likely use the word "extraneous."

Chandler stood up and held out his quite-intact hand as if to shake. "Hi, I'm Chandler Bing. I'm very good at sarcasm, but physical humor still eludes me." He paused. "Well, now that I've confirmed that it's safe to pass through, I'll just stick my head through and have a look around…"

"Yeah, we wouldn't want to lose our heads or anything," Joey remarked, as Chandler disappeared from the neck up into the portal.

"Ha ha," said Rachel.

"What?" Joey asked, staring at her, puzzled.

"'Lose our heads,'" she explained. It dawned on her that he hadn't meant for it to be funny. "Oh, I'm sorry—I thought you were making a bad pun."

"Oh, that's all right," he replied, grinning. "Come on: Joey and puns? Joey and puns go together like, I dunno, a sandwich and…and…um, and…"

Rachel was smiling and waiting, with that pregnant-person glow, eager to hear the analogy completed. Try as he might, Joey could not think of anything that would not go with some sort of sandwich. He shrugged it off. "Doesn't really matter, either way it's not gonna happen, Joey and puns. Hey, what do you think he's seeing back there?"

Chandler pulled his head back through to the apartment side. "Apparently some sort of back-room for storage, that's what. And it's a hell of a lot bigger than that closet ought to be, unless say the apartment next door is nothing but storage room." He held up a familiar plastic rectangle and waved it back and forth, grinning widely. "Found my credit card."

"So what do we do now?" Rachel asked, staring at the doorway, hand on one hip.

"Close it up, obviously." Joey gesticulated for emphasis.

"Hey, now. If we close the door back, we'll never be able to find out what's back there, and good luck getting it back open. I'm feeling a little adventurous!"

Rachel thought for a moment. "You know, so am I! We got that closet open, now let's treat ourselves to a little look inside! It'd just be selfish for Monica to keep the other dimension all to herself!"

"Rachel, you can't go through there!" protested Joey, who frankly was more than a little frightened that at any second, endless hordes of flesh-eating bugs were going to stream out of the portal and devour them all. "You're pregnant!"

"Yes, and my baby and I should be just fine with two capable men to protect me from any bogeymen lurking in the closet."

There was a pause. "Go ahead and say it," Chandler remarked. "I know you're thinking, 'okay, one capable man between the two of you.'"

Joey searched for another good reason not to investigate the secret closet. As much as he would enjoy an adventure with Rachel (and Chandler, who only merited a parenthetical mention in his thinking, assuming Joey knew what parentheses were), he wanted to be careful. After all, he'd never actually been through a dimensional portal before. "Well, I'm just thinking, what if we're on the other side, and Monica comes back, and sees her secret closet with the door wide open? We'd all catch it from her! And I don't want either of you guys to get in trouble with Monica."

Rachel looked at the inside door handle. "It locks from the inside, so we can just pull it shut behind us, and open it back up when we're ready to head back. No problem!"

Joey still appeared concerned, so she kept talking. "Joey, it means a lot to me that you're worried about the baby. That's really, really sweet of you. But you heard Chandler, it's a storage room! We'll all be fine! Really, we will. It'll be fun."

"And sanitized beyond all reason," Chandler added, "given whose closet we're talking about here."

"Oh, okay," Joey said, relieved. "Yeah, it'll be fun! I mean, nothing like this has ever happened to me before! It's exciting, right?" He hesitated. "But listen, at the first sign of flesh-eating bugs, we're heading back."

"Flesh-eating bugs?"


	4. Through the Secret Closet

Note: Once again, thanks to those who've dropped me reviews. And Marcus Lazarus, I'd just like to take this note to say that I totally agree with you about the Rachel-Chandler interaction. Their relationship is, to me, possibly the most interesting one on the show. It's not straightforwardly romantic; it's a friendship with a kind of subtlety to it. And I think it's best summed up by Chandler's remark, "I'm not very good with advice. Can I interest you in a sarcastic comment?"

* * *

Chapter 4: Through the Looking Glass...er, Secret Closet 

Chandler and Rachel stepped through the portal and instantly found themselves in a dimly-lit storage space. Hanging fluorescent lamps provided minimal illumination, and metal shelves ran parallel to each other throughout the room. Boxes and packing crates comprised most of the décor, along with strange-looking shelved machinery. "Hey, where's Joey?" Rachel remarked, suddenly realizing that he hadn't come through the portal yet.

Just then, Joey emerged behind them. "I brought some towels from the bathroom," he explained, showing them a pair of towels. "You know, in case we need towels for anything."

"Not going to ask," Chandler said, "not going to ask."

Joey reached back through the portal and shut the closet door behind them. It looked rather strange, with a doorknob poking out of the plane of swirling colors.

"So, how about all of these boxes?"

The three of them began examining one of the piles of crates. Rachel bent over to have a closer look at a box at chest level.

"There's writing on the side! It looks like Hebrew."

"How do you know?"

She looked up at the two men. "Come on, that doesn't look like Hebrew to you?"

"Sure," Joey agreed with a shrug. "I mean, that's how Hebrew would look to me if I didn't know Hebrew. Um, which I don't, but still."

"Well, I'm so glad I was a Jewish Studies major," Chandler quipped. "Oh my God! Monica's supplying Middle Eastern terrorists with contraband arms! I can't believe I never figured it out!" He put a hand on his hip. "Believe me, that's not Hebrew. That's not even Arabic."

"Point taken," said Rachel, a little disappointed. "So what language do you think it is, Smarty Smarterson?

"Meh, hmbuffuw nyeb," Chandler shrugged.

"What do you say we take a look inside?" Joey suggested.

The box (indeed, like all the other boxes) was metal, with a hinged top, locked with some unfamiliar integral device. An LCD display on the side reminded them, in so many words, that they didn't know the language.

The three continued looking around the room. On one of the shelves, Joey found a small device that looked like a motor with several unlit lights and tubes…and a tiny mechanical leg. He pocketed it: you know, in case he ever needed a flashlight/motor with one leg.

"What I'm wondering is, what is a dimensional portal doing in Monica's secret closet?" Rachel mused.

Joey shrugged. "Maybe it came with the apartment?"

"And she never told me?" Chandler said with feigned indignation. "The nerve of that woman!"

There was another moment of silence as the group resumed combing the rows of shelves.

"You know, I'm beginning to think that Monica doesn't know about all this back here."

"Joey, it's a dimensional portal. How could she _not_ know?" Seeing Joey immediately start thinking, Chandler cut him off. "It wasn't a serious question. That was sarcasm."

"Hey, found a door," Joey said. "Two of 'em!"

The double doors were heavy, solid, and entirely willing to slide open upon detecting motion nearby. As the group passed through, they emitted a series of unusual sounds.

"Whoa," Joey remarked. "Electronic doors aren't supposed to sound like _that_." He knew the thought didn't make much sense, but the noises had somehow struck him as…grateful.

Beyond the doors was a narrow hallway that hooked to the left, where the passageway t-boned into a much wider and longer hallway. A hallway full of, apparently, people.

And full of the incomprehensible babbling gurgle of a busy crowd.

"It looks like a mall or something!" Rachel said. She paused and observed the clientele, not all of which were humanoid. "But with…robots. And ugh, what's _that_ thing?"

It looked to be six-footed, six-foot-tall hamster whose head had been shaved and stripped of all facial features except the mouth. Joey and Chandler cringed.

"Now th-that's something you don't see every day, even in New York," Rachel observed, her voice a touch shaky.

"Um, what do you say we go back to the apartment?"

"And lock the door firmly behind us," Joey added.

Chandler hesitated. A purple thing with leathery skin and face-tentacles ambled by, followed by an amoeboid blob with robots sticking out of it, and then something that defied description entirely.

"Sure, I've seen enough," he said, turning to go. But a hand took him by the shoulder.

* * *

Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged consulted his digital clipboard. He compared the pseudo-3D photographic representation provided by his ship's computer with the flesh-and-blood Earth person some twenty feet in front of him and confirmed it as the next on his perpetual itinerary. He strode purposefully through the crowd and clapped a spindly-fingered hand on the being's shoulder as it was about to depart down the hall.

* * *

Chandler turned to face the hand's owner. Well, his face, the hand's owner's chest: the alien was a good head or two taller than him. It had a long, flattened head with two jet-black slits for eyes, and grey-green skin that, for appearing so alien, was exceptionally glossy. In the way of clothing, it wore extravagantly draped golden robes with a clearly extraterrestrial collar design. 

Rachel covered her mouth with her hands and made a quiet gasping noise. Joey resisted the urge to pat her shoulder reassuringly…for about two seconds.

"You must be Chandler Muriel Bing," the alien said by way of greeting.

Chandler glanced back at his two friends, who were staring bug-eyed at the conversation taking place before them. "I'm sorry, you must have mistaken me for some other Chandler Bing," he tried to explain. "One whose middle name is Muriel."

However, it was looking back at its clipboard now. "No, that's you. You're a spineless pansy who hides behind a façade of jokes," it told him decisively. "You have no backbone."

The three humans stared back at it, stunned.

It looked up from its clipboard, squinted at the object of its insults, and pronounced as an afterthought, "And you have an ugly vest." Removing a stylus from the side of the clipboard, it made a tic on the red plastic board's surface. With that, it turned and re-entered the crowds passing through the hallway.

There was a moment of bewildered silence. And then: "I do not have an ugly vest!"

Chandler fumed, oblivious to the fact that Joey and Rachel were for some reason trying very hard to remain composed. "That's the last straw! I don't care if he's president of the galaxy, he has no right to insult me like that! I mean, who is he to talk? He's got an ugly robe! You two stay right there; I'm going to give that jerk a piece of my mind!" And with that, he took off into the crowd.

Joey and Rachel exploded into laughter, clutching their sides. "Muriel!" Rachel exclaimed through giggles. "Chandler M. Bing!"

"Muriel?" Joey hooted.

"Oh my goodness…oh…" The two collected themselves as the laughter died out. "Wow. Do you think we should go after him?"

Joey almost agreed, but thoughts of the hairless-headed hamster compelled him to hesitate. "Uh, I dunno, it's kind of a strange place and we don't really know our way around…"

"And neither does Chandler! All the more reason we should follow him!"

"Okay, yeah, this could be trouble," Joey conceded. He and Rachel stepped out into the main passage, passing a handful of labor robots. "You got to wonder, though…where's this guy know him from?"

* * *

As Joey, along with Rachel, hustled along the corridor through the crowd, he accidentally bumped squarely into one of its constituents. "Excuse me," he told the being, and almost hurried along without a thought, except that he hesitated. 

"Hey, have you seen a guy with a vest come through here? Looks kinda like us, kinda brown hair, tan pants…"

Speaking, the alien failed to explain something, due to the fact that its words were utter gibberish to them. Reading the incomprehension on their blank faces, it gave an exasperated sigh, made another remark, and slapped something into Joey's ear.

"Hey, whoa now! What the…?"

Rachel had caught sight of the object in the thing's hand. A fish!

The thing stepped forward, unfastening a hip pouch and reaching into it. Rachel held up her hands and backed away.

"N-no, no thanks, I'm, um, allergic to fish in my ear." She shook her head emphatically. "No thanks."

The alien rolled its eyes: two in one direction, three in the other. "Morons. Out traveling, and not a one of them with a Babel fish. I don't care if the circular-stomached one is allergic, there's just no excuse." As it spoke, Joey's mouth opened in amazement. "Now the vest man with the hair: yes, I just passed him as he was turning to the left two hallways down. You've got that? Two hallways down, on the left. It's the Zone 9-Zeta docking bays."

It walked away, muttering things that Joey was astonished to be able to understand.

"Dude, did you hear that?"

"Hear what?" Rachel asked.

"He just told me where Chandler was! You mean you didn't catch that?" Joey asked. Rachel shook her head. "Weird. Hey—I'll bet it's whatever he did to my ear! So I speak his language now! How cool is that?"

"Pretty cool," Rachel said with a touch of trepidation, as they continued in pursuit of their friend.

* * *

Eventually, the two of them caught up to Chandler, finding him in the middle of another branch corridor, in front of a sliding metal door that was in fact refusing to slide. "He went through this door," he explained, still breathing somewhat heavily. "And locked it behind him." 

Large obvious numbers on the front of the door read "9Z31."

Rachel took a moment to catch her breath before offering to help. "Want me to try it with the hairpin again? I _am_ batting a thousand today." She allowed herself a slight smirk.

"Yeah, just stick the pin right in the retina scanner and see if you can get anywhere with it," Chandler retorted, storming back and forth in front of the door, which did not seem to like the prospect of having a hairpin rammed into its retina scanner. "I was this close to catching that creep! What I wouldn't give for a crowbar right now…"

"They have retina scanners, why stop at a crowbar? Why not wish for a disintegrator ray?" Joey suggested.

"If wishes were horses…" Rachel remarked. There was a moment's silence.

"If wishes were horses, what? Don't leave us in suspense! And besides, what do we need horses for?"

"Kick down the door?" She shrugged, smiling.

_She's got a really pretty smile! Shut up, Joey_!

"You know, I really don't like the way this conversation is going," remarked the door.

* * *

Meanwhile, on the other side of the door, Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged was re-entering his spaceship. The ramp retracted behind him, the hatch closed, and the ship began to hum quietly. As its long legs left the ground, elegantly and smoothly returning into the silver carapace, the ship continued to hover in the docking bay. Wowbagger had named his ship the _Perpetual Motion_, as kind of an ironic way of rubbing the ship's computer's nose in it. After all, it was the craft's owner and not the craft itself that was immortal. 

The ship's computer had been recently outfitted with a Sirius Cybernetics Genuine People Personality Module so that it would actually care about this fact.

You could say a lot about Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged, and many did, at considerable length, but no one could accuse him of being a vitalist. Whether carbon based, ether based, cybernetic or anything else, if it had feelings, Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged was willing to insult it.

"Computer, next destination, please," he said, powering up the hyperspace drive. The docking bay hatch began sliding open.

"Next on your itinerary is the planet Urnarnu. You are scheduled to insult the planet's monarch, Chand Lermu Riel Binhaba, whom you have decided to call 'a complete blithering idiot.'"

"Good, I've never met him but I'm sure he deserves it. What network channels will we be passing through?"

"Teletheater and Penumbra Networks. They aren't showing any movies you haven't seen at least four thousand times, though Teletheater does have a re-release of 'Overdrive' with additional scenes. You've only seen that six hundred twenty-nine times, though you've seen the original five thousand eight hundred ninety-six."

"You know I hate action movies. Screw it, I'm going to take a dip in the hot tub. ...filled with Old Janx Spirit. Get to it."

"You've already done that, actually. Two hundred ten times. You had quite a run of it during space-year 9968-92."

"I have a finite memory, okay? I may be _immortal_," he emphasized the word with slow, deliberate precision, "but I can't remember every trivial detail that I come across in my _limitless_ travels. And I'd think even you would identify with that, as even you will eventually become _obsolete_. Now fill the hot tub with Old Janx Spirit and don't talk to me until we arrive!"

"…Any chance you've reconsidered about renaming the ship, sir?"

"Did you hear a word I just said? Hot tub, Old Janx Spirit, now!"

* * *

Joey, as the only one who could understand the languages in its speech database, was having a protracted argument with the door. In New York, one hears one's share of strange arguments, but Joey's side of things was definitely one of the weirder ones that the other two had ever heard. 

"…I mean, this perfect stranger insults him and just runs off like that. How would you like it if some loser said, I dunno, you were no good at shutting? …I don't care if you're just doing your job! …Programmed? You mean they made you so you can talk with people, but I can't even convince you of stuff? Geez, what's the point of that?"

Chandler sighed and crossed his arms, leaning against the door.

"Dude, forget this guy," Joey suggested to him. "What does he know about good taste in vests? He's obviously a complete weirdo. You don't need to let him get to you like this! Come on, let's check this place out and meet some people…things…people."

"You know, you're right. There's plenty more to see. Let's go."

"Rach, you okay back there?" Joey asked, as they began to leave. Rachel had an uncomfortable expression on her face.

"Guys. Guys, something's happening, I feel really weird. I don't—whoa!" She flinched.

"Are you all right?" Chandler asked.

"Oh hey, hey—don't worry, you'll be fine," Joey leaped in with the reassurances. "I'm sure it's—"

"Oo! Oof…hnff!" Rachel interrupted, holding her belly.

"Oh God, she's doing baby stuff!"

"Don't panic!" Chandler advised agitatedly. "Just don't panic! We've got to get her back through the gate." He and Joey moved to support her. "Come on, here we go." Behind her back, the two guys shared a look that said: _we are so screwed_.


	5. The Hitchhiker's Guide to Pregnancy

Chapter 5: The Hitchhiker's Guide to Pregnancy

"It hurts," whimpered Rachel, "it feels strange."

"Just keep moving," Joey offered. "We're here for you, the baby's gonna be okay, just fine…"

"Stay calm," Chandler interjected. A mauve amphibian with quadruple-jointed arms shambled past. "Just keep moving."

"And look at the floor, not at the crowds!" Joey added.

Rachel made noises.

They passed through a door, which wished Joey a good day. Joey, however, was too preoccupied with the current situation to be properly surprised. "Here's the main hall again, just up ahead," he observed.

"Doing okay there?" Chandler asked.

"Maybe," Rachel said, her voice shaky. She was still moving forward steadily, though, which was saying something.

An alien, coming along in a hurry from just behind the three of them, bumped into Joey's side. His composure already fraying, he yelled futilely at its retreating form. "Hey ugly! Fine way to treat a pregnant woman!"

"Eat me, strag-boy," replied the alien, speaking from its armpits.

"Did that thing just…? Oh…" Rachel looked as if she were about to be sick.

Joey firmed up his grip around her shoulder. "Hang in there, Rach."

She looked up at him, distressed. "I-Is the baby gonna be okay?"

"There's no problem. Everything will be fine. No danger." Which was a blatant lie, but he figured if she wanted sound medical advice, she wouldn't be asking an actor.

"Oh," she gasped, doubling over. Joey hesitated—but he knew what he had to do. With his free hand, he took hold of one of hers, and she held back. With a death grip. _At least I don't have to feel bad about enjoying this, 'cause I'm really not…_

* * *

After what seemed like an eternity to them, they finally arrived at the hallway back to the portal-room. The two guys together helped support Rachel as she walked the home stretch.

The double doors were just ahead.

"Almost there," they reassured her. She gave a tired whine in reply.

If the length of the main corridor had seemed like an eternity, the last ten feet seemed like two or three of the damn things. The stress had subsided, but Rachel was clearly feeling fatigued and nervous. Her steps were drawn-out, shaky. But finally they passed through the doors ("Thank you for helping these doors to perform their function," Joey heard them say) and entered the storage room.

Which seemed a lot darker than before.

"Where's the portal?"

"The portal's gone! It was right here on the back wall!"

Joey searched frantically. "It's gotta be here somewhere! Maybe it was on the other wall. No—maybe it moved behind all the crates. No—maybe it…"

Rachel dropped to her knees before the wall, stunned. She stared blankly at the floor. Something in the dark caught her eye, and she picked it up unconsciously, turning it over in her hands.

"What's that, Rach?" Chandler took a closer look. "…It's the doorknob."

There was a long, profound silence.

"Great, just great. So the portal closed. So we're stuck in another dimension. We're stuck so far away from home that it _defies measurement_, with a pregnant woman and no human medical facilities anywhere nearby. Could this _be _any worse?"

"Fine mess you've gotten us into!" Joey exclaimed.

"_I've_ gotten us into?"

"Yeah, you! Whose great idea was it to do some exploring, see what's on the other side? And with Rachel and the baby!"

"I had no way of knowing the portal was going to close! It's not like it occurred to you, either! You figured it came with the apartment!" Chandler jabbed his index finger at Joey.

"Yeah, well, you talked me into going with you guys! I was all set to just stay home, and everything would be fine!"

"So you'd prefer that just Rachel and me be stranded here?"

"I didn't say that! You think I wanted any of this? You think—"

"Guys, please don't fight," Rachel protested. "Please."

"Don't you start!" Joey added, gesticulating with impassioned concern. "You should have known better to go running off into God-knows-what with a baby on board! Think of your own safety, woman!"

"Y-You're right," Rachel said, sniffling. She made a noise like a hiccup. "I should have, have…listened…"

Joey stopped, as it hit him that he had just made her cry. "Oh, geez! I'm sorry, Rach! No, look, I didn't mean any of that!"

"Joey's right. I mean, what are we doing? Sure, the situation just got a hell of a lot worse, but backbiting's not going to help at all. We're just all under a lot of pressure, especially you." He looked at Rachel. "We all played a part in getting ourselves into this mess, but we're not going to get home by going on a guilt trip."

Rachel wiped her eyes. "Thanks. Both of you, thanks." She sniffled again. "So much."

Joey looked down at her and gestured to the doorknob. "Hey, I want you to have that. As a peace offering."

"Me too," said Chandler. "Since it's my wife's doorknob."

"You guys are the greatest." Setting the doorknob in her lap, Rachel took both of their hands. "I can't think of two guys I'd rather be stranded in space with."

Joey's insides threatened to liquefy.

Chandler patted her hand and let go. "Rachel, you should lie down and rest. You want to spread out those towels, Joey?" Joey let go of Rachel's other hand and made a headrest of one of the towels, spreading the other over the floor. "You feeling okay?"

"I…think it's over. I'll be okay…I'm just a little bit worn-out."

"Good. Now one of us will stay and watch her, in case it happens again, and the other should go out there and try to find help." He looked to Joey. "That would be you, since somehow you can understand them now."

"Yeah, some guy slapped me on the ear back in the hall, and I think he did some kind of Vulcan mind pinch or something."

"Which is convenient. Anyway, come back here as soon as you find someone with a clue about what's going on. Maybe then we can find out what's happened and how to get back home."

"We're counting on you, Uncle Joey," Rachel said, patting her stomach and smiling anxiously.

"I won't let you down." He struck a Superman pose and dashed out of the storeroom, shouting. "Joey Tribbiani to the rescue!"

"Looks like the stress has already made _one_ of us crazy," Chandler remarked.


	6. XenophiliaXenophobia

A/N: With what I've got of this fic so far, I wrote most of it in a flurry of inspiration a month or two ago. I've since run out of steam, and furthermore I have a bunch of schoolwork and stuff to focus on; consequently, I'll be putting this aside indefinitely until the steam builds up and breaks forth in a scalding geyser of wossname. Creative thinger. You know what I mean.

* * *

Chapter 6: Xenophilia/Xenophobia

Joey passed through the crowd of strangers. By human standards, it was a far stranger crowd than most.

He scanned the clientele for an adequate being to ask for information. And normally Joey was an outgoing guy, but then again, he was accustomed to social interactions with groups of people who, on average, shared the same number of appendages as him.

He definitely felt out of his league here. Hands in his coat pockets, he kept an eye out for any being appearing official and not especially threatening.

Suddenly, something familiar in the crowd caught his attention, and he acted almost instinctively. Pushing past a robot and its reptilian owner, he intercepted the sexy redhead with a tap on her bare shoulder.

He sized her up: blue tube top and shiny black pants hugging her shapely physique.

Human, and exceptionally female.

"How you doin'?"

She tossed her hair and walked past.

"Hey! Hey, that's really rude!" Joey kept walking after her. "I'm just asking how you're doin', and you won't even talk to me?"

"_You're_ being rude," the woman retaliated, eyes dead ahead.

"How am I being rude? Look, we're both humans in a strange place, and I was thinking we could help each other out—"

The woman spun around, venom sacs expanding in her cheeks as she spat at his face. Reflexively, Joey shielded himself with one bare forearm.

"Geez, fine! You just OW! My _arm!_" He furiously rubbed his arm on his pants leg, wiping off the spit, and in a few moments the burning subsided. He shuddered. That obviously wasn't a human being, and he'd have to think twice before hitting on aliens again.

Well, unless they were really, really hot.

* * *

"I'm worried," Rachel said.

"Why?" Chandler asked. "We're stranded in an utterly unknown dimension without any supplies, and you're pregnant. What's there to worry about?"

"I think you hit it right on the head." She sighed. "I'm just worried that we'll never get home."

"You want to tell me about it? I mean, I can do sympathy. It should be fine as long as I don't open my mouth…"

"Thanks, Chandler." She smiled sadly. "But it all being gone forever, I honestly don't think I could deal with that. New York's home for me. My job's there, my friends are there. We'd never see Ross and Monica and Phoebe again. That's where my life is, and I just couldn't I have to believe there's some way we can get back, even if there's not."

"I know I couldn't bear never seeing Monica again."

Rachel made a sympathetic murmuring noise and patted his knee. Lying down on the floor, she couldn't well reach his shoulder.

"But you know what?" he continued, after a moment's pause. "Honestly, I don't think we're stranded here forever."

"Really?"

"Sure. I mean, you've seen the technology all over this place. The aliens have got to have some kind of dimensional teleporter that can get us back to New York City, or a high-tech key that'll open up the portal we went through. They're advanced, enlightened beings; they'll be glad to help us out, just as soon as Joey finds one that can tell us something about dimensional travel. There's probably just been an equipment failure for whatever keeps this portal open. Nothing they can't fix."

"That makes sense. When you put it that way, I'm surprised we aren't home already!"

"Yeah…me too, actually."

There was a moment of moderately uneasy silence.

"Tell me a joke," Rachel requested. Chandler hesitated, wracking his brains. "Come on. Make it a funny one."

"Give me a sec." He frowned. "You know, I don't think you want to hear any of the jokes coming to mind."

"Now why do guys always assume that women don't want to hear dirty jokes? That is such an unfair stereotype!"

"Fine," he replied sarcastically, "do you want to hear the one about statutory rape, pedophilia, or rednecks and inbreeding? Or blonde jokes, I know you'd love those. Okay, I think I've thought of a joke that's not too offensive. It's pretty awful, though."

"Okay, shoot," Rachel jumped in quickly.

"What's worse than finding a worm in your apple?"

She thought for a moment. "I give up. What?"

"The holocaust."

"Chandler, that is…horrible! I-I really shouldn't be laughing," Rachel said, laughing.

"You think you can do better?" he asked with a grin. "Come on, hit me with your best shot."

"Okay." She searched for a joke. "How many New Yorkers does it take to change a lightbulb?"

"How many?"

"Fifty."

There was a pause, and when no explanation was forthcoming, Chandler asked, "…Fifty?"

"Yeah, fifty, it's in the contract," Rachel quickly shot back.

His chuckle hung in the silence of the storage room. "I miss New York," Rachel finally said, sadly. And then she panicked.

"My job! With Ralph Lauren! I'm going to lose my job! When I don't come in to work in the morning, or the next morning, or—"

"Rach, calm down!"

"But it's my _job_! What will I do if I come back and I've lost my position? My career is over—anyone I go to interview with will call Ralph Lauren and hear just how unreliable I am! And the baby! Just when I was starting to feel successful and stand on my own two feet…"

"If you're trying to be Monica so that I won't miss her as much, it's not working," Chandler noted dryly. "First of all, less worrying and more panic. Also, she's a little more self-assured than that: you _deserve_ to keep that position, and none of this is your fault. As it is, you're way too insecure."

"But there's nothing I can do…" she protested weakly.

"Listen, then. We've already assumed they know how to travel across dimensions. Time is a dimension. So they must have time travel, and we can come back to the moment we left. Problem solved, nothing to worry about!"

"But what if they don't? You're just assuming!"

"It makes sense to assume. I mean, they've got talking doors." He paused. "Wait, what's wrong here? I'm being optimistic!"

Rachel looked down at the doorknob and took another moment to regain composure. "No, you're right," she sighed; "I don't know why I'm being so panicky. It's probably just the hormones."

At this moment, humanoid figures in imposing suits of body armor and carrying jet-black combat rifles stormed into the storage room, quickly located the two Terrans, and surrounded them.

"Wow, those hormones are really something," Chandler remarked unsteadily. Some jokes are intended to be funny. Others are made not so much for their humor value as simply a way of dealing with the onset of fear or anxiety. This joke of Chandler's, then, was the sort of remark intended to be so unfunny that you didn't wet your pants.

* * *

Entering the apartment, Monica almost announced her presence out of habit, but stopped herself. Hesitating for a split-second, she noticed her husband's absence from the living room, or anywhere else visible from the doorway. She rushed to the bathroom hall, and, finding no sign of her husband fiddling disobediently with the lock, turned around with the expectation that he would emerge as if from nowhere, saying, "Hah! You don't trust me!" But he didn't.

"Chandler! I'm back!" she announced. She looked into the bedroom, finding no sign of him. So she knocked on the bathroom door. "Are you in there?"

But the apartment was pretty clearly empty.

"Damn!" she said. If you second-guessed someone else, then you pretty clearly won; if someone else second-guessed you, you lost; but what happened if you were second-guessed twice by no one at all? The empty apartment felt strange—perhaps just because she had been looking forward to coming home and seeing Chandler again and maybe even catching him at the closet so that she could win, but it felt like he ought to be here. It was hard to say whether she would've preferred losing over a surprise like this, and for Monica that was saying a lot.

She decided to check the closet anyway, just to see if it had been unlocked. The doorknob turned easily, and when she pulled on it, it came out.

"Aah!" she exclaimed, and her mouth tightened as she started fuming. He had seen inside her closet! And he had ruined the doorknob entirely! She got angry, and then got even angrier at him for not being there to get angry at.

She hooked her finger in the empty doorknob-hole and pulled the door open.

The giant pile of junk remained inside, in just the state she'd left it. "Thank God," she told herself, "at least he didn't mess anything up.

"But _ooh…_he looked in my closet after I told him not to! And When He Gets Home…"

The final "m" stretched itself out into the silence and became a syllable.

* * *

The _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ observes the tendency of certain sentient races, including humans, to display varying degrees of predilection for sameness. Such races prefer the company of those similar to themselves in appearance, mannerisms, thought, and above all else preferred brand of cola. This tendency is in fact indirectly responsible for the Guide's entry on Earth as "Mostly Harmless": Earthlings are generally content to keep to themselves and, when faced with a strange or problematic situation, will generally choose to ignore it.

The _Guide_ also notes the opposite tendency, that of xenophilia. Some races possess an innate fondness for variety and difference, to degrees varying from healthy to that of the Allelosians of Voonmog-7. The Allelosians have such a partiality for beings unlike themselves that they actively seek out entities that do not even exist, on the grounds that could be no more different an entity. As a result, there has historically been a proliferation of Allelosian philosophers, and the number of recognized religions on Voonmog-7 exceeds the population four-to-one.

Never having read The _Hitchhiker's Guide_ to the Galaxy, Joey Tribbiani considered himself a fairly open-minded individual, by human standards. He had friends of various ethnicities, and living in New York had given him a good perspective of the physical diversity of the human race. Unconsciously, though, as he asked the space station's other visitors for information, he displayed a clear aversion for anything non-humanoid.

And to an extent, this made sense. A human might well have quite legitimate doubts about whether he can meaningfully communicate with a being that does not have a mouth, or to what degree he has any common ground with an apparently sexless arm-covered orb whose body refracts the visible spectrum of light. (Joey wasn't aware of this phenomenon, of course; all he knew was that staring at the damn thing made his head hurt because its body parts kept disappearing behind objects in the background.)

At any rate, when he spotted an individual whose physical peculiarity stopped at his attire, Joey immediately moved to intercept him.

"Hey," he said, getting the man's attention with a tap on the shoulder and holding out a hand to shake. He smiled. "I'm kind of lost, and I was wondering if you could tell me where this place is?"

The man stared at Joey's hand. "Well, this is the stopover's main hallway. Information Services might be able to help you if you've forgotten which sector you parked in."

"No, no." Joey shook his head, casually bringing his handshake-hand up to the side of his forehead. "I mean, I didn't come here by spaceship or anything. My friends and me pretty much came by accident through a space portal. And it's closed. Do you think you could just tell me where Earth is from here, and how many light-years it would take to get there?"

"The Earth?" the man asked, raising one eyebrow.

"Yeah. Big green-and-blue planet, in between Mercury and Venus, got people that look like you and me?"

"I know the Earth. Thing is, you're standing where it used to be."

Joey looked down at his feet. He looked around at the metal corridors, the hallways and docking-bay doors and side-shops. He looked at the crowds.

"Here?"

"Right. Ten years ago, the Galactic Hyperspace Planning Council arranged to have the planet demolished. Now the area is a hyperspace bypass. They had this stopover built as a site for interplanetary travelers to refuel, take a breather, buy food and souvenirs. It's a pretty backwater arm of the galaxy, so facilities like this are pretty far between…"

"Ten years ago? The Earth? But I was just there!"

The man nodded. "You must've come from a parallel universe where the Earth wasn't blown up. You said you came through a portal?"

"Right. My friends are back there waiting. I mean, where the portal used to be. On our side. You know anything about portals?"

"No, but this might." He held up a device the size of handheld gaming system with the words 'DON'T PANIC' on the front in big friendly letters. "Oh, by the way, I'm Lorz Bavglew, owner of the starship _Luigi's_."

"Joey Tribbiani." Joey smiled broadly and held out his hand again, and when Lorz failed to shake it, he grasped Lorz's hand firmly. "Nice to meet you. Here, I'll take you to meet my friends and we'll see about getting that portal open.

"Right." Brow furrowed anxiously, Lorz looked like Joey had just asked him to be the Best Man in his wedding. Or at least the ringbearer. "Oh, um…and by the way…you might want to get a new pair of pants at the gift shop. Those look fit for incineration."

Joey looked down at his pants. The front of the right leg was eaten all to pieces, as if it had been dissolved.


	7. Revelation and Earfishes

A/N: I finally got another chapter out, just as school's startin'. But, since school's startin' again, there's no telling when the next chapter will be up. Thanks for your patience, everybody, both with this installment and future chapters as well.

* * *

Chapter 7: Revelation and Earfishes

To make a long story short—something that, at this point, this particular story could especially use—Lorz and Joey found the storage room bare of all life. "Rachel? Chandler?" Joey called out into the emptiness. He walked between the shelves.

"These back rooms are off-limits, you know," Lorz remarked. "How did you get the door unlocked?"

"Hey now!" the door interjected. "Don't blame the door! It's my pleasure to open for all authorized personnel!"

"And this guy and his friends weren't authorized personnel," Lorz explained.

Joey looked around the door, trying to find where the voice was coming from. "He's not blaming you."

"I just figured that since only authorized personnel have access to my room, and you were inside the room…"

"I see."

"Wait. So you're saying that this guy's not authorized?"

"No, not at all." Lorz shook his head. "I mean, like you said, he got inside, right?"

"Well, _you're_ not cleared." The door wished it had a face, so that it could smirk. It never told anyone, but it secretly preferred the keeping-people-out part of its job to the letting-people-in. Not that they weren't both exceedingly pleasant activities.

"It's okay," Joey said quickly, "he's with me."

He rubbed his hands together. The air in the storeroom had that snappish, quasi-solid quality that air takes on in rooms designed for the sole purpose of keeping things in them. Dry and lukewarm.

"I'm not seeing anyone," Lorz observed, peering among the shelves.

"Man! First the gate disappears, now my friends!"

"Hey, now. One second." Lorz turned to address the door. "Did anyone else come through here recently? Anyone leave?"

"That information requires a security clearance," the door said, with the smugness of any organic security guard. The fact of the matter is that anything with a personality derives some pleasure from being an impediment to non-permitted behavior, and since door personalities are designed based on life-form personalities…

"I'm cleared," said Joey.

"Okay, what's your clearance code?"

"Uh…" Joey quickly decided to just fudge it. "Six-seven-eight-two-zero-zero, um, three-two-AB-six."

"All right then, let's see. I remember twenty-three minutes ago, a six-man patrol squad came in, equipped with proton power armor and Kill-o-Zap rifles, and exited with your authorized friends."

_Holy crap! What are the odds?_

The _Hitchhiker's Guide_ notes that the Babel Fish, in translating unfamiliar articulatory vocalizations into their corresponding yet arbitrary meanings, also converts units of measurement (for example, non-galactic-standard time increments such as minutes) and certain simple idioms. The _Guide_ further notes that the wonder-fish does not translate non-verbal communication, and warns that some noises may be misinterpreted. This can be particularly disastrous on the planet Larwahl, whose inhabitants' vocal cord muscles can release approximately ten hundred million kilojoules of stored potential energy at once, so that throat-clearing is an offense punishable by death.

The door had paused, as if trying very hard to put two and two together. "Are you sure they're authorized?"

"Oh yeah," Joey replied. "Yep. Couldn't be more authorized if the, uh, President of the Galaxy himself had authorized them."

"All right then. Is there any more information you'd like from the records, Commander Wozog?"

"No, I think we're fine." Joey turned to Lorz. They shared a look.

"We'll go check with Security and see if they've found the other two," Lorz determined. The door slid open as he and Joey exited the room, expressing its gratitude for their passage through.

* * *

By habit, Ross' feet knew the way out of his apartment and down to the coffeeshop. This freed his mind up to think about why he was going there.

Monica had called him, telling him to meet her and Phoebe. She had asked if he had seen Chandler, who apparently wasn't around. But she hadn't said anything about Rachel or Joey, which was odd. Weren't they going to meet with everyone, too?

Ross checked himself. Of course Monica hadn't mentioned them; she was probably just going to stop across the hall to let them know. If they had also been missing, she would have mentioned it with Chandler's disappearance.

And given Monica's propensity for worrying too much, that in itself likely wasn't a dilemma either. He wondered if she had remembered to try Chandler's cell phone. Even if she had, her husband might have simply gone to the gym and left it in his bag.

But despite his mind's reasonings, Ross still couldn't help but think that something seemed out of place. It was like hearing findings of euhelopodid remains at a Patagonia site.

When he walked in the door to Central Perk, Phoebe and Monica were already there, on the couch. They both looked up.

"We can't find Chandler," Phoebe said seriously.

"You've both been looking?"

"Well, she has," Phoebe admitted. "I only just heard about it. But I didn't find him on the way over, and believe me, I looked!"

_Kind of hard to find what you don't know is lost, _Ross thought, sitting down.

"He's not at the office," Monica reported, "and when I dial his cell phone, it doesn't even ring. No dial tone, no 'the number you have dialed is not in service,' nothing. Rachel and Joey aren't at home either—but I called Rachel's cell and found out that she'd left it in her apartment. Which, by the way, they had left unlocked. So I took a spare key and locked it for them, and taped a note to the door telling them that they could come see me if they needed letting in."

"So the _three_ of them are missing?" Ross asked incredulously. "Where did you look?"

"I've called the gym twice to see if he's there, and he's not. He hasn't been in the apartment since I came home."

"And Gunther says he hasn't seen any of them down here since this morning," Phoebe jumped in. "Look! I made a helpful contribution!" She glared at Ross. "More than I can say for _you_."

Ross let it slide. "Do you think Rachel had a contraction," (at the word "contraction," something began stirring in his mind, like the subconscious birth of an idea, but the subconscious kept the idea to itself and he remained unaware) "and they took her to the hospital?" (and there again on the word "hospital:" but all Ross was aware of was a slight concern for his friends, especially the one carrying his baby.)

"Oh my God," said Phoebe.

"Why didn't I think of that?" Monica said, smacking her own forehead.

Ross shook his head. "No, they would have let us know if it'd been something serious like that." He laughed. "I don't even know why I brought it up!"

"You really think they're all right, wherever they are?" Monica asked.

"I'm sure they'll turn up in no time," Ross said, in his Confident Man voice. "They probably just went to see a movie or something."

"You're using the Confident Man voice!" Phoebe exclaimed, putting a hand to her mouth.

"And this makes me _wrong_?" said Ross, and laughed again.

* * *

"Are these your friends?" the security officer asked, as they walked into the office's waiting room. Apart from the beings waiting in it, the room bore a resemblance to Earth's waiting rooms, complete with secretary's desk, magazines on a knee-high table, a fish tank, and leafy frondy plants. In fact, the degree of its normality was downright bizarre.

"Guys!" Joey exclaimed.

"Joey!"

"Joey!"

Chandler and Rachel got up as quickly as Rachel's condition would allow, to give Joey a quick hug. "Geez, you guys had me freaking out!" Joey told his friends. "What happened?"

"We're not one-hundred-percent sure," Rachel said. "Not speaking their language and all."

"A bunch of the…staff…here came into the storage room," Chandler continued the explanation, "armed with enough heavy firepower to subdue a military installation, and led us out. We only just got here. I'm not sure what they're planning to do with us, but at least we're not behind those red-energy laser bars that'll cut off your hand if you try to escape."

"They have those?" Joey said excitedly.

"I'm just guessing." Chandler shrugged.

"Oh, they do," Lorz interjected, but to Chandler and Rachel it sounded like he was impersonating a chainsaw caught in a can opener.

"What's he saying?" Rachel asked.

"You know," the security officer said, "we should really fix that."

He walked over to the fishtank, pulled out one of the tiny yellow fishes swimming around in it, and showed it to Chandler, pointing to the fish and his own ear. Chandler shrugged, held out his hand, accepted the fish, and inserted it into his auricular canal.

The tiny fish slipped easily into Chandler's ear. The alien spoke, and he comprehended its words perfectly: "That will be sixty Altairian dollars, please."

"What?" Joey cut in, indignant. "You mean it costs money? No complimentary earfishes for the earthlings? I got _mine_ for free!"

"You don't have sixty Altairian dollars, do you?"

"I do," said Lorz, who was proving to be an extremely helpful plot device...er, I mean, individual.

The security officer went to the tank and pulled out a second fish. He offered it to Rachel, but she promptly began backing away, almost tripping over the table with the magazines strewn all over it.

"N-No," Rachel faltered, "I am not p-putting a fish in my ear. No fishes."

The security guard made insisting gestures, and when these proved futile, suggested to Chandler and Joey that they try to convince her.

"Rachel," Joey tried, "These things are seriously helpful! You shouldn't refuse one!"

"Ihaveeveryrighttorefuse!" Rachel spat agitatedly, fists clenched at her sides.

"Maybe it's better to be cautious," Chandler offered. "There's no telling what effect the alien biology could have on her pregnancy."

"That's right! Alien biology! There's no telling!"

"Rachel," Joey reassured her, "no one's gonna make you get earfishes."

* * *

"Sir, a report from the reported entry site!"

The security guy, Chandler, Joey, and Lorz all turned to see the underling who had spoken. Rachel, given her aversion to Babel fishes, had remained in the office under the supervision of the secretary, while the other two relocated to tell the security officer what they could about the gate, etc. They were now in the operations room of the arrivals/departures department, where records had confirmed the departure of one (1) Wowbagger the Infinitely Prolonged from gate 9-Zeta 31.

And now, the underling was reporting on his findings.

"Our readings detected traces of impossibility at the portal's previous location. Levels were just high enough to account for any inconsistencies between this fanfic and 'Friends' or the HHGTTG series."

"Impossibility traces," mused the security officer. "And from a Perfectly Normal Universe, no less…"

It had been established that, in all likelihood, the three friends hailed from a Perfectly Normal Universe. The _Hitchhiker's Guide_, on the topic of Perfectly Normal Universes, has the following to say:

_Scientifically, the definition of a Perfectly Normal Universe is one whose normality index is 100: absolute normality. But even before you take your normality readings, you'll be able to tell whether you're in a PNU by obvious signs._

_First of all, nothing especially exciting happens in a PNU, which simply lacks the improbable technology to cause anything especially radical to happen. The inhabitants' idea of a groundbreaking development is along the lines of putting a man on the moon. However, in a PNU, this is pretty much a futile action, because secondly, a PNU necessarily has one standard life-inhabited planet and one sentient (though generally primitive) species._

_Due to their absolute normality, PNU's can be extremely easy to get stranded in—for instance, one's Improbability-Powered Dimensional Jump-Drive breaking down. In such cases, one will find the locals helpful but skeptical. If one remains stranded for prolonged periods of time, one may likely be able to use one's "wacky exploits" as inspiration for a televised situation comedy series._

The _Guide's_ entry includes cross-references to entries on mostly harmless planets, the Whole Sort of General Mish-Mash, and repairing and jury-rigging a Dimensional Jump-Drive using nothing but post-industrial materials.

But the underling, also, had something to add to his report.

"Appearance of a portal to an alternate reality in a Perfectly Normal Universe is, of course, impossible—that is, infinitely improbable." He looked back over his readings. "And there is only one known source of sufficient impossibility, outside of afternoon talk shows, to generate such a result."

The security officer zipped over to the side of one of the flight departure coordinators, sitting at a computer console. "Quick, search today's departure log for the Heart of Gold." The coordinator's fingers tapped across the keyboard.

"The Heart of Gold?" Chandler asked.

"The only ship in the known universe equipped with an Infinite Improbability Drive," Lorz explained. "The improbability drive is strong enough to rip a hole in Normality with the residual unlikelihood."

The technician's keyboard-tapping stopped. "Records confirm the departure of the Heart of Gold from Bay 3-Beta 57 at 3:35 PM GST," she reported. "That's slightly over an hour and a half ago."

"Chandler, there's our chance!" Joey said. "We've gotta follow that ship!"

"Fine, just let me strap on my rocket boots," Chandler quipped. "It's a good thing I had my body structure modified to withstand the vacuum of space."

"Wait, didn't you say you had a starship?" Joey asked Lorz.

"Right. The starship _Luigi's_. You guys need a ride?"

"Yeah," chorused the two guys stranded in an alternate reality, "absolutely."

The group thanked the security officer for his help and left to go get Rachel.


	8. Bistromathics 101

A/N: 'nother chapter up! Woot! And you're in luck, all you Marvin fans, because we've finally got the Paranoid Android into the story. He's been absent from this fic for way too long. Anyway, hope you enjoy, and in your reviews, feel free to offer constructive criticism: I'm always open to ways to improve my writing.

* * *

Chapter 8: Bistromathics 101

Parked in the wide metallic expanse of the docking bay, the trio of earthlings found themselves staring at what appeared to be the storefront of a downtown Italian restaurant, complete with overhanging red-and-green-and-white canopy. A sign above the entry hatch/front door read "Luigi's Italian Pizzeria."

"This is your starship?" Joey boggled.

"Yes," said Lorz, thrusting his chest out with just a touch of pride. "The _Luigi's Italian Pizzeria_, one of the first commercially available Bistromathic-Drive models."

"Sounds like my kind of starship!" Things in the parallel dimension were looking up, at least for Joey.

"And this unwieldy-looking vessel really flies through space?" Rachel asked. "Wow."

"Yep, it's a structural necessity for the drive computations." Lorz walked around to the side, hit a series of buttons on a keypad, clipped off a bit of his hair and stuck it in the DNA-sample verification slot, then stepped back as the entry ramp slid out. "Come on in."

Following Lorz into the corridors of the ship, which (as any science fiction aficionado would see coming a mile away) seemed to occupy much more space than that encompassed by the outside of the ship, the three passed through numerous doors and received thanks for making a simple door happy. However, one door sighed a satisfied "mmmm," adding, "Oh, that was good. Please, walk through me again."

"Ignore it," said Lorz tersely.

But Joey stepped back through it. "Aahhh…that feels so good! Yess!"

"What's it saying?" Rachel asked.

Joey grinned self-assuredly. "Looks like this door _really, really_ likes being walked through. Even doors go for the Tribbiani charm!"

He walked through a third time, back on the side of the others. "Ohhh…oh, yeah!" exclaimed the door. "That's it! Ohhh!"

"Yes, it's really something that you can arouse inanimate objects," Chandler deadpanned. "Are you done fooling around?"

"Okay, sure," Joey assented. "When are we gonna get some food?"

"Ohhh," moaned the door, "don't walk away! Come back and pass through me again! Use me as an entrance…an exit! Anything!"

Rachel shuddered. "That is really creepy."

"See, I told you just to ignore it," Lorz said. "I really need to get that door fixed. Oh, hi, Marvin."

An unexpected movement revealed part of the ship's hardware to actually be an android, whose bulk had concealed the humanoid shape of its body. It possessed a pair of triangular red eyes and an inscrutably sad expression.

"It's you," it stated in leaden tones. "I was just standing in the corner, staring at the wall."

"Great. I've got a couple of people I ran into that I'd like you to meet. This is Chandler" —Chandler extended a hand to shake, but was left hanging— "and Joey, and Rachel."

Chandler withdrew his hand.

Marvin looked them over, during the uncomfortable silence of meeting someone who really doesn't want to meet you. Rachel was about to break it, but Marvin cut in. "They wouldn't happen to be earth people, would they?"

"Actually, yeah. They come from an alternate reality."

The android sighed. In a mechanical, metal-coated being, this pretty much takes the form of a synthesized exhalation from the speakers and a raising and slumping of the shoulders, but it gets the point across. "I'm an earthling magnet."

"See," Lorz explained, "I just so happened to remember that Marvin here once did a stint aboard the Heart of Gold. He's able to locate the ship anywhere in the universe."

"I have a brain the size of a planet," Marvin lamented, by way of elaboration.

"Wow, that's pretty impressive," Joey said.

"Actually, owing to time travel—" But Marvin abruptly halted, shoulders slumped. "No, you would not believe me."

"What? Wouldn't believe what?"

"You can't just leave us in suspense like that," Chandler added. "It's like buying a box of Oreos and finding out that Nabisco stopped filling them with cream. What wouldn't we believe?"

"You would not believe my age in relation to the whole of the universe," explained Marvin.

"Oh yeah?" Joey crossed his arms. "Try us."

"I have a brain the size of a planet. I have calculated from physiological analysis that you are utterly incapable of believing me on this point. Unless I lie."

"Come on, give it a go," they urged.

Marvin let out another long, depressed sigh and conceded. "I am three thousand times the as old as the universe."

"Whoa," Joey pronounced, in a fair impersonation of Keanu Reeves. "Really?"

Marvin shook his mechanical head. "No. I lied. The actual number is thirty-seven."

"I don't believe it," Joey said.

"Impossible," Chandler echoed.

Marvin sighed.

Rachel briefly considered telling him that she believed him, but he would probably see through such an obvious lie anyway.

There was another awkward silence, but then Joey jumped in. "So what about the food? I'm not getting any more…um, un-hungry…here!"

Lorz looked up from a control panel. "I was just getting clearance for departure right now. I'll start the lift-off procedure—computer, begin liftoff sequence and prepare for dining."

"Affirmative," replied the ship's computer.

"Now," said Lorz, "just follow me, and we'll get our table."

"Prepare for dining?" Rachel asked. "You mean the outside of this place isn't just cosmetic?"

"Nope. It may be a starship, but it wouldn't be the _Luigi's Italian Pizzeria _if it were not, in fact, a pizzeria."

"Great," Rachel said, appearing satisfied. (Joey appeared more along the lines of died-and-gone-to-heaven.) "Marvin, want to join us?"

"No," said Marvin, "robots can't eat. But I could come along anyway if it would help perpetuate the illusion of camaraderie."

Rachel mentally relocated Marvin from the category "people I've only just met" to "people I barely tolerate."

* * *

At around 11 PM that night, while she was brushing her teeth, Phoebe heard a knock on her door. She took a swig of water, shouted "Coming!", and realized that she'd gotten the order wrong as she spewed toothpaste-in-solution all over the bathroom floor.

It turned out to be Monica at the door, holding a basket of cleaning supplies.

"Hey, Mon," Phoebe greeted her. "What's up?"

"Me. I can't sleep. Is it okay if I come in?"

"Sure." Phoebe stepped aside and went into the living room after Monica, who dropped into a chair, talking with a kind of breathless anxiety.

"I cleaned my whole apartment. Top to bottom. I dusted and vacuumed and washed the windows and swept the landing while the laundry was—" She stopped. "And everything. I'm just so worried. I have no idea where Chandler is. I haven't heard from him since this afternoon, and do you know what my last words to him were? 'Don't look in my closet!'"

"Chandler is okay," Phoebe reassured her. "He must be."

"Right. We'll go to the precinct and file a missing persons report for all of them in the morning."

"No sign of Rachel and Joey?"

Monica shook her head smartly.

"God, you look tense. You need to get some sleep."

"But I _can't_ sleep," she pointed out.

"You want me to give you a shoulder rub? Fix you some tea? Would that help?"

Without turning from her spot in the chair, Monica spoke. "Actually, um, I came over here to ask if your apartment needed cleaning?"

* * *

One of the ship's corridors led back to a lobby just between the restaurant and the outside of the ship. The actual restaurant inside was dimly lit, with recorded accordion music providing some sort of ambience. The décor, Chandler noted, looked as if someone had mistakenly assumed that "Italian" meant "red and white, in a checkerboard pattern wherever possible."

"Good afternoon," said the headwaitress from her podium-y thing with the seating charts and all. "Do you have a reservation?"

"Five for Bavglew at five-thirty," Lorz said, surreptitiously slipping her a seven-Altairian-dollar bill.

"Ah, right, Mr. Bavglew! Right this way."

"I never could get the hang of that," Chandler quietly observed to no one at all.

The party of five (the author snickered at his own cleverness) followed the headwaitress and were seated at their table. In a few moments, they were approached by another waitress, wearing an apron with a pad tucked into the pocket. "Good evening!" she greeted them. "How is everyone doing today?"

"Oh, fine, thanks," Rachel replied, and before she knew what she was doing, she asked, "What can I get for you?"

She covered her mouth with her hands as the party stared at her.

"I'll have the fettuccini alfredo, and my friend here will die of embarrassment," Chandler told the waitress.

"I can't believe I just did that," Rachel exclaimed, after the waitress had taken everyone's orders and left. "It was like completely reflex! You know, from when I was waitressing at Central Perk."

"Not a problem," Lorz said. "I'm pretty sure I can offset the calculations by applying a Mendelevian shift of a few cents to the tip. Right, Marvin?"

"Huh?" Rachel asked.

"What calculations?" Chandler asked.

"The calculations for the ship's Bistromathic Drive. See, it's all based on the behavior of numbers in restaurants. Everything going on in here is part of the parascientific computations of the ship's drive. There's this number called a recipriversexcluson that's anything except what it actually is, and you just shift into hyperspace with a simple linguini modulus and then you don't have to fiddle with Improbability Fields at all."

He was met with blank stares.

But after a moment, something suddenly clicked. "So we get where we want to go by having dinner?" Joey exclaimed. "Dude, I could really get to like this place."

A few tables down, a small simulated child complained that he didn't like pizza. His virtual parents expressed their incredulity.

"Well, if what we do here affects the flight path of the ship, we'd better be on our best behavior," Chandler noted. And then it sunk in. "Oh no! What am I doing here? I'll doom us all!"

"No, no, it's cool," Lorz reassured him, tapping the table with one finger. "Between me and Marvin, we'll be able to compensate for anything you might do in how we tip and divide up the bill, and balance all the equations that way. And the instrumentation isn't as sensitive as you might think."

"Pretty impressive, how you're capable of calculating all of these nuances and mentally adjusting his math for unforeseen factors," Chandler observed.

"Oh, no, you mostly just wing it and it works out halfway okay in the end. Like a lot of life."

In the background, a guy tried to communicate to a friend, via napkin drawings, how the universe was actually made of thought, vibrating backward through time in a conceptual bubble that refracts light back on itself at a single focal point in the center of all reality.

"Hey Lorz," Joey interjected, "did you know that Rachel's havin' a baby?"

"Oh, come on, as if it's not obvious—" Rachel began, but Lorz cut her off.

"No, really?" he asked, suddenly intrigued. "Do you know how many genders it has yet?"

The three friends looked at Lorz as if he had just sprouted wings from his head. "Um," Rachel said after a moment, "well, earth people only have babies with one sex. Male or female. And we definitely know it's a little girl growing inside me!"

"Have you and Ross thought of any names yet?" Chandler asked.

"Oh, we've thought of plenty of names. We just haven't agreed on any of them." She sighed. "Can you believe he wants to name our baby 'Ruth?'"

"I don't see what's wrong with…" Chandler said. He trailed off as Rachel glared at him. "I mean Ruth sucks. So what do you want to name the baby?"

"Something French like Thérèse or Sandrine…" Lorz looked blankly at her. "Oh, right, France. France is a country we have back on Earth, where they have really pretty names. But I don't think Ross would go for it.

"Maybe Lily," she added. "Or Sarah. I know it's kind of ordinary, but Ross doesn't seem to like all the original names."

"How about Jayden?" Chandler supplied. Rachel and Joey stared incredulously at him. "Or how about not. How about if I just don't have any more opinions on baby names ever. Monica can name all our kids."

"Well, my vote's for Lily," Joey said. "I think it's a pretty name."

"Thanks," Rachel said appreciatively.

There was a lull in the conversation.

"So," Marvin sadly asked Chandler, "does consuming the food cause biochemical reactions in the pleasure centers of your brain?"

The _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy _notes a number of experiments conducted by MISPWOSO (the Maximegalon Institute of Slowly and Painfully Working Out the Surprisingly Obvious) to derive a mathematical formula for pleasure based on biochemistry, in order to maximize the physiological sensation of happiness. However, the scientific rigor involved proved so arduously dull that half the scientists involved became chronically depressed, and the project was cancelled. Much as counting calories diminishes the enjoyment of eating in inverse proportion to the number of calories eaten, putting so much effort into having a good time actually proved counterproductive.

The "gay science." The quantification of pleasure. You figure it out.


	9. Angst in Space

A/N: Okay, after the usual long long wait, here's the next chapter updated. A couple of notes, though. I haven't gotten any feedback from other people, so I don't yet have an objective sense of what works and what doesn't for this installment. Specifically, I've experimented with breaking the fourth wall and some moves where the structure is very self-conscious, and I want to know if it works. Also the God stuff at the end, which I wouldn't include if I didn't think it were true to the characters. I've always wondered why Ross, as a scientist, insisted on telling Ben the story of the Hannukah miracle, while elsewhere he displays a very rationalist outlook and remains skeptical of Phoebe's kooky mysticism. I think how I've characterized him here sheds some light on that.

But does it work, my friends? Does it work? Feedback of any sort is appreciated.

* * *

Chapter 9: Angst in Space

"So where did you say that ship with the Impossibility Drive was headed?" Chandler asked. They were walking through the ship's corridors, finishing up Lorz's official tour of the ship.

"Milliways," replied Lorz, ignoring the error in appellation. "The Restaurant at the End of the Universe."

"Which end?"

"The _end_." Lorz looked at the three of them significantly. "Like, that's it. No more time, no more space. The grand egress. The _end _of the universe."

"Ohh," Joey said, nodding slowly.

"Well, that's kind of a disappointment," Rachel said. "I guess it had to end sometime. I never really thought much about it."

"Will have had to end sometime," Lorz corrected. "And hey, at least now you'll get to see it for yourself! Oh, hey, here we are: the kitchen."

The kitchen looked much like an earth kitchen, but with most of the cabinets replaced with appliances of uncertain function, and all of the tables and chairs integrated into the surfaces of the room. "There's the auto-steamer and the broiling gun over there, and if you need help operating any of this, just ask the shipboard computer. That's the Nutri-matic on the counter, and the meat converter, and we've got a UCD right there if you want any salts or seasonings."

"Got a question," Joey said. "How come you need a kitchen if your ship is a restaurant?"

"Luigi's doesn't serve breakfast," explained Lorz. "You don't want to wear out the transmission."

"Gotcha," said Joey, even though he didn't.

"Anyway, my quarters are just down that first hall and to the left, and if you need Marvin for anything, just ask the ship's computer to get him."

"I think I'll call for Marvin right now," Chandler chimed in, "I was just thinking I was feeling a little too happy."

"So I guess that's it," Lorz finished up as he took them back through the ship's corridors. "Only thing left to do is the sleeping arrangements. Come on, we'll head back to the restaurant and I'll introduce you to Antonio."

"Who's Antonio?" Joey asked.

"Part of this balanced breakfast," Chandler quipped. He sang, "The one and only…Antoni-o's!"

"No, no," Lorz corrected, as they took a flight of concrete stairs up to a brown-painted wooden door. "He's the little old Italian man who rents space above the restaurant. I'm sure he'll be able to put up a few friends of mine."

"Does he have, um…" Rachel asked. "Indoor plumbing?"

"Of course."

The door opened, and there was a man with brown pants and a brown-and-green wool vest over a burgundy shirt. He had a tiny white moustache and messy white hair that would probably look kind of like Einstein's if it weren't kept short. He was wrinkly.

"_Buona sera_, Antonio," Lorz said.

Antonio embraced him with one arm and kissed him on the cheek, and Lorz's face contorted in extreme discomfort, like a man getting a shot, until the hug was over. "A very good evening it is, Signor Lorz," he replied. Joey and Chandler heard the words just like that, but to Rachel, the little old man was emitting exactly the sounds you'd expect to emanate from a little old Italian man.

"How are you? How are the grandchildren?" Antonio continued. The two of them began discussing, in detail, the lives of their grandkids, moving on to assorted small talk.

"Man, this reminds me of family reunions," Joey remarked quietly to Chandler. "I just hope Mrs. Antonio isn't like my aunt Norma! I swear, that woman does not know the meaning of 'No thanks, I'm full!'"

"What, is her cooking that bad?" Rachel asked. "I'd think you'd like being encouraged to eat."

"Don't get me wrong, the woman makes the best damn sausage lasagna I've ever had." Joey's eyes grew wide. "But you just try enjoying the stuff when you filled up on it thirty minutes ago!"

"So what are they saying now?" Rachel asked. "Are they discussing the rent?"

"No, they're discussing the grandkids," Chandler answered.

Joey's brow furrowed in perplexity. "You mean you can't understand them?" he asked Rachel.

But now Lorz was turning toward the three of them. "Antonio, I was wondering if you could do me a favor. Allow me to introduce my new friends. This is Chandler…"

"Nice to meet you," Chandler said, shaking the old man's hand and tolerating the cheek-kiss with a grimace on his face.

"It's a pleasure," said Antonio, in Italian.

"He doesn't have a Babel fish," Lorz explained. And then, in Italian, "And this is Joey…"

Joey figured he'd show off his Italian. He leaned into the one-armed hug and returned the cheek kiss, then said to Antonio, "Pleezi to meetzio!"

"And Rachel," Lorz said finally.

Chivalrously, Antonio took her hand in his own old wrinkly one and kissed it. Charmed, Rachel smiled politely.

"Now," Lorz explained to Antonio, "My friends are from out of town, and they need a place to stay for a few nights. I was wondering if you could help them out."

After the sleeping arrangements had been made, and Antonio had shown his guests the facilities and invited them wordlessly to make themselves at home, Chandler remarked to Lorz," Let me guess, not actually a real person—just part of the computer interface matrix?"

"Right you are," said Lorz. "It's a little bit fiddly, but it's an easy way of consolidating sleeping quarters with CPU hardware space. Also increases processing speed astronomically—basically, it does a better job of fooling the universe into thinking that this really is an Italian pizza place. Makes the drive almost as fast as an improbability drive, and a lot more predictable."

* * *

The room, Chandler observed, was piled high with broken electronics, ranging from plastic casing to circuit boards and fluorescent tubes to oh good Lord is that a fax machine powered by a cow heart. There was also a pair of utilitarian tables, similarly piled with junk, and a few cardboard boxes half-buried in dismantled appliances. He stepped into the room, scanning the patches of open floor for a path to the door on the opposite wall.

"Thank you for making a simple door very happy," said the door behind him.

Chandler was just about to start making progress in crossing the room when he heard a voice through the closing door. "Chandler?" The voice got closer as it called. "Hey, Chandler!"

"One right after the other," said the door blissfully as it whooshed open again. "It's almost too good to be true."

Joey stuck his head through the door. "Dude, I thought that was you out in the hallway!" He looked around at the scrap piles. "Whoa. It looks like Optimus Prime threw up in here."

"Given the volume of scrap, I'd say this is where he does the 'purge' part of his after-meals binge-and-purge drill."

"Dude, Optimus Prime with bulimia is totally not funny," said Joey. "You shouldn't make fun of the Transformers. What are you doing in here anyway?"

"I just figured I'd explore the ship a little. What are you doing here?"

"Looking for you."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. I was having breakfast with Rachel…"

Then there was a flashback. It took place in the kitchen.

"Look at this," Joey said. "Have you seen this thing yet?"

It was a microwave-esque box with transparent window on the front and a single blue button right underneath the door. Rachel came over to look as he pushed the button. Instantly, a tiny tree began growing as if from nowhere, and it sprouted a single perfect orange. A laser shot from the side and disintegrated the tree, leaving only the orange; the tree's ashes were sucked out through tiny holes in the bottom of the microwave chamber.

"I hope they don't have one of those for if you want bacon," Rachel remarked.

"Yeah, tell me about it," Joey said. "It's the weirdest thing."

Rachel interrupted, placing her hand on his. "Joey, honey, we're flying through outer space in an Italian bistro. We're already _living_ the weirdest thing."

She smiled up at him warmly, and he grinned back, brow furrowed, heart tying itself in knots under every square inch of skin on his body. She patted his hand and withdrew hers. The flashback ended.

"…it was just really awkward and uncomfortable, so I said I was going to go see what you were up to."

"Awkward and uncomfortable around women. I know what that's like. Well, if you want to look around the ship, you're free to join me."

The door on the opposite side of the room sighed as they passed through it. In the space of the flashback, they had crossed the room of junk.

"Well, it's not just that," said Joey, as they set out to examine the next room, which seemed to be some sort of all-purpose sports court. "I mean, stuff with Ross has been bugging me too."

"Oh yeah?" Chandler asked.

"I just feel real sorry for the guy. He was real bummed that he didn't get to feel the baby kicking for the first time, he told her to page him if any pregnancy stuff happened…he was wishing he could be in on the baby stuff like any other dad."

"And now he can't be there at all, huh."

"Yeah. I was seriously thinking maybe Rachel ought to move in with Ross, if it's that important to him. And if she's okay with that, too, I mean. And I thought it might even help me deal with my feelings for her, with her not being in the apartment all the time…" He threw up his hands in frustration. "But now I can't even do that!"

"Well, that really sucks." Chandler frowned sympathetically.

"Tell me about it! Now I'm always around Rachel, and Ross is missing out on everything! It's, it's like…it's like the _opposite_ of good!"

"Bad," Chandler supplied.

"And I feel so terrible about it—like if only I hadn't let her go through the dimensional portal in the closet, none of this would have happened!"

"Joey, listen." Chandler put a hand on his shoulder. "It's not your fault. You had no way of knowing we'd get stranded over here, but now we have to make the best of it. I know it's hard with your feelings for Rachel, but I think you're doing as good as you can, in spite of this whole mess. And you know, I think your concern about Ross and his being the dad is really admirable."

"He must be worried as anything about Rachel," Joey said, frowning.

"Well, we know she's all right." _Insofar as we guys know anything about pregnancy at all, which we don't_, Chandler thought but didn't add. "And when we get back, Ross will know she's all right too."

"Right," said Joey anxiously. "Just gotta tell all that to all the things going on inside of me. Man, it _sucks_ having feelings!"

* * *

Once there was a man thoroughly uncreative in all respects except for one: he possessed a natural aptitude for scientific innovation and discovery. He contributed greatly to the advancement of the field of quantum physics and developed a theory that, if correct, might well lay the groundwork for time travel on Earth. However, his talent meant nothing to him. His secret all-consuming dream, his most heartfelt desire, was to write the Great American Novel.

Despite his dearth of literary genius, this man had a plan to realize his dream. Given determination and a sufficiently large amount of time, he supposed, a man could accomplish anything. If an infinite number of monkeys at an infinite number of typewriters could randomly produce the entire works of Shakespeare over an adequate span of time, then surely a man working not at random but deliberately could produce a work of literary genius, if he only had the _time_!

So, he spent long nights researching, looking for a way to halt time for himself while he wrote the Great American Novel in temporal isolation. Eventually he finished work on an invention that generated a time acceleration field. He set aside an evening, turned the machine on, and watched as everything outside—from his vantage point—ground to a virtual halt.

Initially, typing away at his laptop, he was enthusiastic and optimistic about his chances of success. However, there was one obstacle he had not foreseen: the psychological effect of writing a large amount of serious literary fiction in an infinitely small amount of time. The world waited for him to emerge from his field while he struck key after key, struggled against his own ineptitude to carry a coherent plot and invent characters with even a semblance of three-dimensionality.

Everyone knows that literary invention demands a price. "Nothing good comes easy," as the saying goes, and quality writing is no exception. Ernest Hemingway, Edgar Allan Poe, Sylvia Plath—their literary genius devastated and sapped their personal lives with the force of a train wreck. And if genius exacted so fiercely from Hemingway, imagine what it did to the psyche of this poor untalented hack!

After countless days of writing, he lost track of the flow of time, drank ten beers in the course of a relative hour, became suicidally depressed, turned off the field, and went for his gun. He would almost certainly have blown his brains out if he could have found his head.

* * *

But the reason why I bring all that up is that, as they traveled through the void of space, the three friends were like that man inside his time bubble, and we, the readers, are like the outside world, looking in on innumerable hours all compressed into what is for us a single moment: as long as it takes to read a single sentence.

Even at hyperspeed, time dragged by.

* * *

But you don't have to be in a parallel universe to have time crawl, either.

Monica walked into Ross's apartment, where he sat on the couch watching a National Geographic special on the fishes of the Amazon River. "Well, I've filed the missing persons report," she said, as Ross looked up from his spot on the couch. "I've asked everyone I know to ask—I've called both his parents and anyone else I can think of that he might be staying with. Same for the others. I've officially done all I can do."

Ross thumped an empty couch cushion. "Have a seat, Mon."

She obliged. "What's this you're watching?"

"It's a National Geographic special on the fishes of the Amazon River."

"Yes," she demanded of the TV. "Bore me, o slow-paced intellectual program, and take my mind off my troubles."

"Do you want to watch something else?" Ross inquired.

"No," said Mon, "the crazy thing is I'm serious." She sighed and leaned back into the couch. "Oh, Ross, it's hard. I just feel so empty without him. And it's not even a grieving kind of empty—it's just so _restless_." She stared up at the ceiling. "He stabilizes me."

"I'm sure they'll all show up," Ross said. "I'm just concerned about Rachel and the baby. I mean, she's pretty far along."

"I know. I can't imagine that they'd go off on some crazy, spontaneous…random fun thing…with her in that condition! But then something must have happened to _them_…"

"It is a little strange that all three of them should disappear, and not one of them gives us a call to let us know what's going on," Ross agreed. He wasn't using the Confident Man Voice. "Probably something unexpected has come up, and they just haven't had time to contact us about it yet. If there's any trouble, they're all capable people—Chandler's a resourceful guy, and none of them are going to do anything _stupid._" He put his arm around her shoulder and gave her a one-armed big-brotherly couch-hug. "Don't worry, Mon. They're all going to get back all right."

"I hope so." Monica bit her lip on one side, then released it. "I actually prayed about it. Have _you_ prayed about it?" Almost accusingly.

Almost.

Ross shook his head.

"Well, why not?"

"Come on, Mon, you know how I am with these things. On a cosmic scale, yes, I do think that the universe is designed and ordered through scientific laws, but I don't expect God to miraculously intervene in human affairs. In the grand scheme of things, we're very small, you know? Prayer is a fine way for people to deal with anxiety about events beyond their control, and if you feel better for it, then I'm glad."

"But it wouldn't hurt to ask, right?" Monica said. "Just in case God _would_ do something, right?"

"Logically," Ross pointed out, "if there is a God who hears and answers our prayers through mysterious divine interventions, he wants people to ask in faith, not as a back-up plan."

Monica frowned and shook her fist at Ross's ceiling. "You drive a hard bargain, Big Guy!"

"Look, Mon, if you've officially done all you can do, I think that's all God expects of you. And He may not do anything to make sure we find Chandler and the others immediately, but He's not going to conspire to put roadblocks in the way of someone who really cares about her friends."

"Well, would you pray about it anyway, for me? Even if you don't expect—would you just, I don't know, say this is important to your sister, and, oh, I don't know…"

"All right," Ross agreed. "If it means that much to you."

In silence, the two of them sat and watched the rest of the show. That night Ross dreamed that he was searching the subway for his friends with the Holiday Armadillo.


	10. The One Where This is So Good for Ross

A/N: This chapter mostly deals with things back home in New York. I thought it would be appropriate, and a good opportunity for both humor and character/plot development: like for instance a little more fun exploring Ross' worldview. Besides that, I also thought it would be a cool challenge to try and keep things interesting without resorting to robots, aliens, spaceships, and all the other things that can only happen in science fiction. How well did I succeed? I'll let you be the judge of that.

* * *

Chapter 10: The One Where This is So Good for Ross

(I Mean, This Is Just What He Needed at This Stage in His Life, You Know?)

Central Perk: there's no coffee shop quite like it in New York City. Well, actually there are a lot of coffee shops like it in New York City. Nonetheless, no New York coffee shop can match it in that one special quality that makes Central Perk what it truly is:

Fictionality.

Mona and Ross walked through the front door. "I couldn't believe it," Ross was saying. "Here he is contending that just because they have similar bone structure, they were the evolutionary predecessors of a species that appeared _thirty million years later_. Seriously, how does he get this stuff published?"

Mona shrugged. "You've got me! I mean, like you said, the therosaurs are the ones with the three-toed feet and the light bones, right?"

Ross smiled, a very deliberate smile. "Thero_pods_, but you've got the idea. Why don't you sit down, and I'll get our coffees?"

"I'm in an iced tea mood today," Mona said as she had a seat on the couch. Ross stepped up to the counter and ordered their drinks.

"Say, how is Rachel's baby coming?" Gunther asked Ross. "I haven't seen her around lately." To himself, he silently added: _I wish Rachel were having _my_ baby._

The next few seconds were extremely short for Ross. As he tried to think of a way to explain a situation he didn't know anything about to a coffeeshop guy that he didn't really know without suggesting that anything was wrong, he was painfully aware of the length of his pause to think, ever increasing in awkwardness, approaching the Critical Awkwardness Threshold.

"Oh, great, great. The baby's…" Ross tried to think of what things babies would be doing at this stage of pregnancy. He could not think of a single one. "…great. Just fantastic."

"Has it started kicking yet?"

"Maybe," Ross answered instinctively, then thought better of it. "Yes." He tried to avoid making eye contact with Gunther, who seemed a little puzzled, but not actually suspicious at this point.

"And Rachel's doing well too?" he asked.

"Oh yeah. Unbelievably well, believe me." Ross cringed inwardly at his ill-considered choice of words. He settled his eyes on his hand on the counter. "So, ah…in summary, both Rachel and the baby are doing well."

"Well," said Gunther, sensing that, so to speak, Game Called on Account of Social Discomfort, "I wish them both the best. And we'll have your drinks out to you in just a moment." He turned behind the counter, with very important coffee to attend to.

* * *

Later that evening, Ross came by Monica's apartment. "What brings you here?" she asked as she let him in.

Ross shrugged. "I just wanted to stop by. I figured maybe you'd like a little company."

"Hope it's not too much trouble to make dinner for two," he said with a smile-that-was-almost-a-laugh. The day Monica found cooking _burdensome_ would be the day Chandler swore off sarcasm on account of the _mental strain_ it put him through. "We could go ahead and invite Phoebe too, if you want."

Monica sighed and sat down in an armchair. "Honestly, I was just planning to order a pizza. If I have to measure one more ingredient myself today, I think I'll puke."

"Is everything okay?" Ross asked.

Monica worked up the effort for a fake grin and nodded vigorously.

"Well," Ross said, trying to think of something nice to offer—because everything was clearly not okay. He envisioned himself offering to cook: but while a halfway decent cook, he was no great shakes compared to his sister. Also, he was not exactly thrilled at the prospect of volunteering for unexpected cooking duties. "Tell you what: I'll call Phoebe and invite her over, and then I'll order us a pizza. We'll have ourselves a meal, all together, the three of us. How's that sound?"

Some twenty, maybe thirty minutes later, Phoebe had joined them at the table, where they were sitting there sharing a large pizza, half-olive, half-sausage, and breadsticks: Monica had insisted that they spring for the breadsticks. She was now putting the breadsticks away like…

…well, like Joey.

No one mentioned Joey.

"So how are things with Mona?" Phoebe asked, after swallowing a mouthful of pizza.

"Going great!" said Ross. "She's so much fun, and she's just an amazingly…I don't know what to call it. She's so enthusiastic about all the things I'm interested in. Paleontology, archaeology, history…I mean, she may not be the most knowledgeable about science, but when we were talking at the coffee shop today, she actually wanted to know more about bipedal saurischians. How often does that happen?"

"Ross, your nerd is showing," Monica remarked.

Ross looked sheepishly at his pizza slice. It randomly occurred to him that all of them were basically eating _slabs_. "Well, yeah. But it's so great to know somebody who just likes me for who I am. You know, being in a relationship where there's no baggage or history…"

Unlike his past on-and-off relationship with Rachel, his good friend who was currently missing, with his baby growing inside of her.

No one mentioned Rachel.

"Oh, everyone's got issues," Monica said. "It just takes time for them to surface."

"Of course," Ross agreed.

"Not that I'm not glad for you," Monica added.

"Me too," agreed Phoebe, "it's always so great when there's a fresh and new relationship before the issues surface and everything gets shot to hell." She paused. "Oh…sorry."

Ross laughed nervously. "Why so, ah, why so doom-and-gloom, Phoebs?"

Phoebe shook her head as she grabbed another slice of pizza, separating the strands of cheese that bound it to its brothers and sisters in the pizza box. "No, no. I'm sure you'll work through your issues."

Ross was in a relationship with a cute, sweet young woman whom he liked and who liked him. Ross' sister was married to Chandler, and they each had their share of issues, but they had managed to work through every catastrophe and every argument—but everything was shot to hell anyway, because now he had disappeared without a trace and Monica missed him horribly.

No one mentioned Chandler.

* * *

"Joey? Hey, wait up! Joey!"

Leo Contadino turned around to see if the exclamations were directed at him. Leo had a thick mustache and thick eyebrows, a square-shaped face, dark hair, and a sturdy build that was just a touch on the short side. His face was decidedly unlike any soap opera star's, character killed off or otherwise, but from the back, he looked fairly similar to Joey Tribbiani.

As he turned, he found himself facing a woman with long black hair, blue-gray eyes, and what was rapidly becoming a look of disappointment on her face. "Where have you…" she began, but trailed off, not finishing the sentence.

"I'm sorry," he said. "Were you calling for someone else?"

"Yes," she explained, "but I thought you were him."

"Well, my name's Leo, not Joey," he told her. "Sorry to disappoint."

"Oh, it's nothing." The woman shrugged, then readjusted her purse's strap. "Sorry to trouble you."

Monica blushed ferociously as she walked away from Leo Contadino. At least she hadn't mistaken anyone for Chandler, which would have been a considerably more embarrassing experience as she found herself embracing a complete stranger.

She drew her coat tightly around her body. He was missing, and she missed him.

* * *

After his last class the next day, Ross went to see "Ocean's Eleven" with Mona. The movie had been her choice, and while Ross often had difficulty suspending his disbelief in order to enjoy movies like this, for some reason he had been able to ignore the little inconsistencies and just enjoy the action. Perhaps this was due to the central plot element of a _heist_. It would be extremely cool to be part of a heist, Ross imagined; certainly much more cool than owning a monkey.

"Say, Ross," Mona asked him, changing the subject as they left the movie theater, "why did you decide to go into paleontology?"

"Well, first of all, dinosaurs are just really cool," Ross said, with a half-embarrassed smile. "But seriously, it's the discovery involved. The idea of unearthing the secrets of ancient prehistory always appealed to me; I mean, here are human beings finding out stuff about creatures that lived millions of years before human beings existed! I wanted to be a part of that."

"That's really neat," Mona said. Out of anyone else's mouth it would have sound like "just being polite," but one of the strange characteristics that Ross was learning about her was that when she said things like that, she actually meant them.

She paused. "But…well…it's not like other sciences, where they're all the time coming up with technology to benefit society. It's mostly just finding out stuff about extinct things. Do you think it ever has practical applications?"

"Wow." Ross laughed. "Tough question."

Mona gave him a friendly smile. "Well, didn't mean to put you on the spot or anything."

Ross shook his head. "Not a problem. Actually, the methods developed by paleontologists to date layers of rock have practical application in the petroleum industry—since petroleum is formed from the decayed remains of prehistoric small marine animals and algae." The sheer number of geeky science words in Ross' statement proved to be too much for even Mona, who stifled a yawn. "Far and away, the easiest way of dating a rock stratum is by dating the fossils contained in it, and that information is…" Ross noticed Mona's abortive yawn. "Really, really boring. But useful to petroleum engineers!"

Mona's yawn turned unexpectedly into a laugh, a cute half-muffled sound somewhere between a giggle and a chuckle.

Ross grinned and shrugged. "Besides, I think people should have the opportunity to do what they really enjoy for a living, whether it's studying the evolution of prehistoric life or whatever else. People should have the chance to pursue their dreams, the things they're really passionate about."

"That's really idealistic of you, Ross," Mona said quietly. A breeze blew, and she brushed a strand of hair from her face.

* * *

Back aboard the _Luigi's_, Rachel, Chandler, and Joey sat in silvery chairs floating with no visible means of support, about a foot off the ground, shaped like giant cushioned contact lenses. The seats were arranged around a translucent table shaped like a circle that really wanted to be a scalene triangle, on top of which was a holoprojector. Tiny shimmering figures projected into the space above the table exchanged dramatic dialogue, translated into English. "Up," Joey said, and his chair began to rise. "Down," he commanded it, and it returned to its original elevation. "Up. Down."

"Joey, I'm trying to watch the thing here," Chandler said. "Could you please knock it off?"

"Dude, you can watch stuff back at home," Joey said. "But this chair hovers in midair, _and_ you can give it voice commands. You don't get this opportunity every day!" He addressed the chair, in a dramatic tone strikingly similar to his Dr. Drake Ramoray voice. "Rotate two." The chair began to spin at a lazy pace.

"Well, maybe we're not in the mood to play with chairs right now," Chandler said, a little snippily.

"Yeah, could you not do the rotate thing?" Rachel asked. "Just looking at it makes me dizzy, and I don't think that synthetic pork chop is agreeing with me."

"Stop rotate," Joey commanded. "Tilt back thirty." The chair reclined backward, leaving Joey staring up at the ceiling. "Up."

"Ohh, I'm so sore," Rachel moaned. "I don't want to move a muscle."

"Oh, I didn't know that scientists had reclassified the tongue as a _bone_," Chandler quipped. "Do you mind? I can't hear the show!"

"What's your problem?" Rachel asked, sitting up straight. "Oof. Okay, now look: you're not the only one with cabin fever, you know." Chandler was silent. "Whereas I believe there's only one of us carrying around another human being inside of them, all day long. So if anyone has a right to be cranky here, it should be me. And do you hear me being cranky? Do you?"

"No," Joey very seriously told the ceiling.

"Eh, you're right," Chandler muttered. "Sorry, Rach." He gripped the edges of his seat. "I'm gonna go see if Lorz has dropped us out of hyperspace yet. With any luck, it'll only be a few more hours before we're at that Milliways place he talked about." He told the holoprojector to turn off and left the room, leaving only Joey and Rachel together.

Rachel sighed and leaned back in her chair, resting her hands on her belly.

"Down," said Joey. The chair lowered to floor level again, leaving the two of them staring at the ceiling together. He looked over at her face: her soft skin, the smooth contours of her chin and jaw, her silvery-blue eyes. She saw him looking at her, looked back over, and smiled.

Melt? Joey's heart was beyond melting. It nearly _evaporated_.

"Tired, huh?" he asked.

"Yeah," she replied.

He smiled back, but inside he was scowling. Scowling at himself for being so powerless to turn off this stupid, hopeless attraction, but at the same time scowling because it hurt so damn much, wanting to tell her how beautiful that smile was, to kiss that mouth, but not being able to. It was pretty much the first time he'd ever wanted something beyond just sex with a woman. Of course he wanted the sex, too, but more than just that.

Oh, the sex. The you-need-sex. The you-and-I sex.

Sometimes the things that don't exist are the most painful things in the universe.


	11. Shindig at the End of the Cosmos

**A/N**: If it's been awhile since my last update, it's because this chapter is the longest one yet. It comprises over one-fifth of the story so far, and is twice the average length of the previous chapters. There's some good gags and humor in here, much of it involving Marvin, and a lot of tasty plot developments too. There is a lot of substantially entertaining storyness within, for your consumption and enjoyment. So yo, check it out!

Constructive criticism is always welcome. If there's any point where it drags on, or if you notice any inconsistencies either with canon or within the chapter itself, or if you have any other helpful stuff to say, just let me know where it flies and where it falls. I really appreciate the pheadbaq, especially when it helps me improve the story.

**A/N 2, regarding revisions:** I recently updated previous chapters with some revisions I'd made awhile ago. Just to fill you in on the changes...Slartibartfast is now looking for Arthur Dent in the opening chapter rather than Ford Prefect. (What would Ford Prefect be doing in a Perfectly Normal Universe, anyway?) Rachel and Joey's exchange in chapter 3 about walrus baseball is gone, replaced with something a bit less random. A few little things are reworded, a few jokes tweaked and retooled, nothing major; that's really all you need to know. And I decided to keep the original author's notes, pretty much arbitrarily.

* * *

Chapter 11: Shindig at the End of the Cosmos

Or, Whining and Dining with Marvin the Paranoid Android

Or, Meet the Prez

Or, The Fine Art of Playing the Odds

Or, Zaphod Beeblebrox Files for Moral Bankruptcy

Or, The One With all the Titles

The _Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy_ says that if you're looking for someone, it's pretty much a sure bet that you can find them at Milliways, the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. After all, given an infinite number of possible universes, there is a discrete probability that at least _some_ of them will develop the time-travel technology necessary to make the trip to Milliways. By multiplying the number of possible universes by the average population of a universe and then by the odds of any single universe developing access to the renowned restaurant, one arrives at a figure for the actual number of people ever to visit Milliways, and since infinity times any finite number is still infinity, an infinite number of people from the Whole of Reality Itself will, at some time or another, stop by for a bite. The chance, then, that at least _some_ version of yourself will make it at some point in his life to Milliways, is as close to one as to be virtually guaranteed.

Consequently, it is _the_ place to be. Literally everyone and his mother is there.

The _Luigi's_ pulled into the parking garage just outside the restaurant, where it was stopped by a small robotic valet. The ship's five passengers stepped out, and Lorz handed over the keys into a steel palm. "Wow, you look just like Marvin," he remarked to the valet. "Same model?"

"Oh, hello, past self," droned Marvin to the valet.

In an instant the three New Yorkers and the guy from outer space were staring at the plasteel-plated parking attendant, mouths hanging incredulously open.

"Hello, future self," it droned back in the same chronically depressed monotone. "I wish I could say it was a pleasure to see you, but I could get the same effect looking into a mirror, and that's hardly pleasurable."

"Well, if it's any consolation, the feeling is mutual," Marvin reciprocated, "except without the novelty of experiencing this conversation for the first time."

The past-Marvin sighed deeply, a synthesized sigh of precisely-calculated misery emanating from its voxbox. "So, is my future every bit as dreary and meaningless as my present existence?"

"Every bit," said Marvin. "And there's suffering too."

"Oh," said past-Marvin, sadly. "Well, I suppose I'll park your ship now."

"Thanks, Marvin," said Lorz. "I'm Lorz Bavglew, by the way, owner of the Starship _Luigi's Italian Pizzeria_. Apparently we'll be meeting each other again." He gestured at the future incarnation of the Paranoid Android standing at his side.

"I'm not looking forward to it," said past-Marvin.

"Well, with such a depressing account of the future from my future self, I wouldn't be either," Lorz sympathized. He turned to his present-day robotic companion. "Marvin, you're just perpetuating a cycle of doom and gloom here! Your past self expects sadness and misery, so that sadness and misery is all you have to report to your past self! What's keeping you from breaking the cycle right here, right now?"

"I don't want to give him any false hopes," said Marvin. "It would be self-deluding."

"Suit yourself." Lorz turned back to past-Marvin and slipped him a generous tip. "There you go, pal. Thanks for your service."

The android's dimly-glowing red eyes stared down at the messy sheaf of bills in his palm. He sighed. "No amount of money could ever recompense me for the five hundred and seventy-six thousand million, three thousand five hundred and forty-one years of dull, depressing misery that I've experienced, or the knowledge that even more eons of suffering await me in the future."

"Thirty-seven iterations of the life-span of the universe," Marvin told his younger doppelganger, as the crew of the _Luigi's_ began to move on. "And counting."

"Well, that was…surreal," said Rachel.

"Tell you what's really surreal," Chandler replied. "I'm starting to get _used_ to all this weirdness."

"It just goes to show that weirdness is relative anyway," Lorz added. "All the technologies and alien races that you earth people find so bizarre? We galactic citizens are used to encountering them everyday. Just think: you're growing familiar with some of the most advanced, sophisticated societies of the universe at large!" Suddenly Lorz broke into a run. "Hey, race ya! Last one to the Vertical People Transporter is a Varbosian space frog!"

Joey joined in, and so did Chandler (against his better judgment), but between the baby and the black dress and heels she was wearing, Rachel was in no condition to be participating in races. And Marvin lagged behind, of course, because such enthusiasm was beneath his dignity. (Indeed, one could make the case that _any_ enthusiasm was beneath his dignity.)

About a half-hour ago, when they had come out of hyperspace and the Restaurant came up on the main screen, Rachel had remarked that she was going to go change clothes. "You're coming along?" Chandler asked.

"Well yeah," Rachel replied matter-of-factly. "What, you don't think I should?"

Joey cut in with his two cents. "Heck no, you're pregnant!"

"Exactly," Chandler agreed. "Look, I just can't see the point. You don't have a Babel fish, so you won't be able to socialize or understand anybody. You have a baby to look out for, so you can't have any drinks. And who exactly would you be dressing up for? Hot alien guys?" He paused. "Now there is a sentence I never thought I'd say."

"So?" asked Rachel. "How often do you get to go eat out at a place where the floor show is the end of history itself? It's been forever since I got dressed up all pretty—which is _not_ just something we do to attract guys, by the way—and this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that I'm not going to pass up!"

"Rach, come on!" Joey reminded her sternly. "Thinkin' like that is what got us into this mess!"

"It is not," Rachel insisted. "I am not in any danger, and we've got someone with us who's a seasoned traveler of the galaxy. This is a high-class dining establishment, and you guys are making it sound like some sleazy pub down the street. Isn't that right, Lorz?"

"I sure don't think there's anything dangerous about Milliways," Lorz responded. "Shoot, I've been there twice, and I've always had a great time."

The ensuing discussion had lasted a bit longer than anyone really wanted it to, especially while anticipating the prospect of first-rate cuisine and the total destruction of space and time. Nonetheless, a workable compromise had been reached: Joey and Chandler eventually agreed that Rachel could come along, but they had made her promise not to get separated from Lorz or Marvin, and to stick with at least one of those two at all times.

"Booyah, grandma!" Joey exclaimed, pumping his fist. "Who's the space frog thingy now?"

"Is the question rhetorical?" Lorz asked.

"Is the question what?" Joey asked.

"Wasn't a fair race," Chandler pointed out, bending over to catch his breath for a second. "You guys had a head start."

The wide transparent tube half-embedded in the sleek light-blue wall before them was large enough to hold several human beings, or one rhinoceros. Lorz touched a hand panel and a previously-invisible door slid open with a whoosh. As Rachel and Marvin caught up to them, he stepped into the tube and began slowly hovering upward.

"Just step in!" he said. "It's a Sirius Cybernetics Corporation Happy Vertical People Transporter. Takes you right up."

Joey took a hesitant step in, followed soon after by Chandler and Rachel.

"Zarking hell," Marvin groused, trudging into the tube. "I hate these things."

"Thank you for choosing Milliways for your dining experience," said a female voice from inside the tube. "My name is Brenda, and I'll be your elevator for the ascent. How are you all doing tonight?"

"I'm—" began Marvin.

"Trust me," said Joey simultaneously, speaking over him and looking around for a place to direct his knowing yet apologetic smile, "you don't wanna ask that question."

"And why is that?" asked Brenda.

"No one cares about my feelings," moaned Marvin.

"Oh no," said Rachel. "It's too late."

"How _are_ you feeling tonight then?" Brenda asked the permanently morose android.

"My existence is an infinite loop of meaninglessness and despair."

"Well, I'm sorry to hear that." Brenda had dropped her composed professional voice and was now adopting the tone of a person who is doing just fine attempting to console a person whose problem she considers to be "all in your head" or "no big deal." "Oh, look," she abruptly announced, "here we are. Enjoy your time at Milliways!"

The five of them stepped out of the tube, one by one, onto a catwalk moving inexorably toward the entry of the restaurant.

* * *

Rachel took a sip of her spacefruit juice without looking down, her eyes instead passing over the clientele at Milliways upper-level lounge. Off to the side, a two-headed lounge singer sang and played the xxaxophone simultaneously, a party of hairy bug-eyed beings looking on in rapt attention from one of the tables. A few other tables were occupied by considerably less exotic patrons, but most of the action was at the bar. Beings of all shapes, shades, and sizes schmoozed to the swanky beats of the lounge music, drinking and chatting and having such a wonderful time that they would no doubt regret it in the morning.

Lorz was telling her a funny story about his sister, a licensed automatic door therapist, but Rachel's mind had wandered to the others. Marvin, being acquainted with the crew of the Heart of Gold, was currently helping Joey and Chandler look for one Mr. Zaphod Beeblebrox (strange name…) while Lorz looked after her. She felt sorry for the two of them, stuck with the paranoid android while she was off having fun at the bar. Chandler's cynical humor would help him deal with Marvin's perpetual melancholy, and Joey would make the most of it, but there they were responsibly pursuing their ticket home, while she had fun.

Rachel kicked herself inwardly for guilt-tripping. Her friends were doing what they were so that she _could_ have fun. Joey and Chandler wouldn't want her not enjoying herself on their accounts, right?

Fingering her necklace absently, she wondered how their search for Beeblebrox was coming along.

"Dude, this thing is the shit," Joey declared, staring down at the dark green PDA-sized device in his palm. It had a five-inch screen, was surprisingly light, adjusted its shape to fit the contours of his hand, and had the words "Don't Panic" written in big friendly letters across the flip-down screen cover. Currently on the screen was displayed a digital likeness of Former President Beeblebrox.

"No kidding, Joe. And not just _a_ shit, but the very shit itself," Chandler quipped, taking another look at the screen and sweeping his eyes over the crowd for the owner of the Heart of Gold.

"All jokes aside, you've got to admit it's pretty awesome. Hey, want me to do the hologram thing again?"

"Sure, but keep it small, no seven-foot Beeblebroxes this time. We're lucky we had Marvin here to get Security off our case." (Marvin trudged silently a few paces behind them. He was giving them the silent treatment—thank God.)

_The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy _says, regarding _The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Polychrome Edition_: "Really not terribly different from the old one. The _Guide_ crew added on a few handy personal database features and organiplast-casing technology, but it's pretty much just a fancy electronic status-symbol widget for the elite who can afford it. Which is okay if you go for that, and it's a decent value for your buck, but honestly, you're not missing out on much if you just go with the original."

Leave it to the _Hitchhiker's Guide _to tell it to you straight, even about its own different incarnations.

The two earthmen watched as a tiny translucent replica of the ex-head-honcho of the galaxy spun just above the _Guide's_ screen. They wandered through the restaurant and compared the tiny image to the people and things around them, dismissing en route a handful of individual guys with extra heads and arms, before finally spotting their target sitting at a semicircular booth, having himself a drink.

"Hey, is that him?" Joey asked, pointing. The man noticed the two of them staring at him and stood up from the booth. "Beeblebrox confirmed," stated the _Guide_.

"Hey, Marvin!" Zaphod Beeblebrox exclaimed, swaggering over and extending one of his three hands. "How the zark are ya? You know, on second thought, just forget I said that."

"Miserable," intoned Marvin.

"Figured as much." Zaphod stuck his outstretched hand in his coat pocket. "Hey, so who are these two ape cadets widjya?"

"Excuse me, 'ape cadets?'" Chandler asked. "Looks like _someone's_ bitter that the Beatles didn't name their hit song 'I Want to Hold Your Hand Hand.'"

"Whoa whoa whoa!" said Joey, interposing himself as Zaphod took a hostilely glaring step toward Chandler. "I'm Joey Tribbiani, and this is Chandler Bing. We're from New York. On Earth." He shared a look with his friend and former roommate that said: _Don't forget, this guy's our ticket home_.

"Well, hey, sorry to hear that," Zaphod said, with what was clearly false sympathy. "Hope you're not too bummed about your planet getting blown up." He gestured with two hands at the giant glass dome above their heads, through which in a matter of moments all the universe would be annihilated in a cosmic crunch. "I mean, happens to everything eventually." The third hand reached back to the table to grab his drink.

He paused. "But hey—I didn't know there were more of you monkeymen survived the Earth demolition thing. I thought it was just this guy Arthur Dent and my, whaddyacall, navigator Trillian."

"Oh, no," Joey explained, shaking his head. "See, we come from a Perfectly Normal Universe. One where the Earth didn't get destroyed. It's still there."

"Whoa, no kidding? Perfectly Normal Universe, huh? Ain't never heard of one of those. That is far-out, man: _far out_." Zaphod took a gulp of his drink.

Joey hesitated. For just a second, the ambient restaurant lighting and dining beings all around and black of space above felt profoundly real to him, and he had one of those moments that inexplicably register in a person's memory. In later years, he would find himself remembering that moment and unable to put a finger on why, yet feeling strangely calmed at the recollection. "Anyway, we've been looking for you." He scratched his head. "Actually mostly your ship. See…"

"We should probably be getting back to Lorz and Rachel now," Chandler jumped in. "We'll tell you the whole story en route." Zaphod hastily downed the remainder of his drink, and they left to return to the upper-level lounge.

* * *

Mr. Treeger walked in the front door of Monica's apartment. "'ey, so what did you say you were having problems with?" he asked her. In the front room, Ross, Phoebe and Mona sat on the couches.

"It's the toilet," Monica said. "I push down the handle, but it won't flush."

"Yeah, sorry I couldn't get to it earlier. Been pretty busy. Let's have a look at it." He walked down the hall into the bathroom.

"No problem," said Monica. "It's only been, what, three hours?" She twitched.

"So hey, any word about your missing friends across the hall?" Treeger asked, beginning to have a look at the toilet. Monica shook her head. "I tell ya, that's the weirdest thing. They just up and disappear like that. I don't get it."

"Neither do I. It's really troubling."

"Now they're all paid up through the end of the month, but if they haven't shown up by then, if that space is not still bringin' in money, I'm gonna have to rent it out."

Monica's brow furrowed. "But what about all their stuff? You don't mean we'd have to clean it all out and…store it somewhere else…do you?"

"Well, that's one option," said Treeger, holding the porcelain lid and staring into the tank.

Meanwhile, back in the living room, Phoebe announced, "You know, I had a dream last night about Chandler!"

"Really!" Mona asked.

Ross went from slouch-on-the-couch to sitting up listening. "Tell us, Phoebes."

"Well, we were playing Chutes and Ladders with Cate Blanchett, and then we were suddenly inside the game and Cate Blanchett was nowhere to be found. So we went looking for her, and we climbed up one of the ladders, and Chandler looked back at me and said, "Now we have to go meet the old man of great wisdom," and I asked, "What old man of great wisdom?" and at the top of the ladder, there was an old man!"

"Was he an old man of great wisdom?" asked Mona.

Phoebe leaned in, wide-eyed. "That's amazing! How did you know?"

"Well, you kind of said that…" Ross trailed off. "Nevermind," he mumbled.

"Anyway," said Phoebe, "then he had to go off and look for Cate Blanchett on his own, but I had to stay with the old man and learn from his great wisdom. But I'm just wondering," she went on, "what does it all _mean_?"

"It means," said Ross, "that you're concerned about Chandler being missing, and you feel he's been taken from you, and also the other evening you saw Lord of the Rings. Did this wise old man look anything like Gandalf the Grey?"

"You know, now that you mention it, he did! But that is entirely beside the point, because you know" —she pointed at Ross— "that that's not what I mean by 'what does it mean!' I mean what does it mean about _Chandler_?"

"Phoebes, I am telling you that it doesn't mean anything about Chandler except that you're concerned about him! Dreams are just our subconscious randomly putting together all the things that have been on our minds. They're not there to give us secret mystical messages or tell the future!"

"Of course they don't! I'm wondering what it means about Chandler's present!"

Ross sighed. "Mona, what do you think Phoebe's dream means? Some weird, mystical, symbolic mumbo-jumbo about his present whereabouts, or sensible psychological insights into her current mental and emotional state?"

Mona looked between her boyfriend and her boyfriend's close friend with a nervous smile on her face. Frankly, she hoped the question was considerably less loaded than it sounded.

* * *

Meanwhile, Rachel had Braxton-Hicks contractions, which caused Lorz no amount of distress (to say nothing of Rachel herself), but they passed. Rachel was quite glad that her water didn't break.

* * *

A little bit later, bearing a Beeblebrox, Chandler, Joey, and Marvin returned to their two companions in the lounge.

"Guys! You're back!" Rachel exclaimed with a smile. "And I'm guessing—"

"Whoa, baby!" interrupted Zaphod, staring directly at Rachel.

"Excuse me?" Rachel asked.

"Yeah," echoed Chandler, "excuse her?"

"I was talking about the fetus." He put a hand on Rachel's belly. "So is it kicking and stuff now? Can I feel?"

"Uhm, ha ha ha, I don't think, um, I mean," said Rachel, removing his hand and trying to think of a polite way to tell Mr. Beeblebrox that it was more than a little presumptuous for him, a perfect stranger and a space alien, to put his hand on her belly. She laughed, a very deliberate laugh. "Well, we only just met, and I'm not sure I feel comfortable with…you know…" She gestured vaguely with her off hand.

"Hey, of course you would be a little uncomfortable," Zaphod said amiably. Joey looked on with a look of reasonably well-concealed displeasure, arms crossed. "It's not every day you meet a former galactic president. C'mon, let me feel." He moved his hand toward her belly again."

"Yo," said Joey, sticking his own hand in the way, forcing Zaphod to withdraw his. "_Former_ president. I don't think that gives you any baby-feeling privileges, especially if Rachel's not okay with it."

"Fine," said Zaphod, shrugging with all three of his arms. "No biggie. So why don't you introduce me to," he gestured in the direction of Lorz, "is this the ship's captain here?"

"Lorz Bavglew, owner of the Starship _Luigi's_." Lorz gave him a nod and, when Zaphod extended a hand for the customary shake, simply waved. Zaphod seemed to get the idea and waved back, unperturbed. "It's a pleasure to make the acquaintance of a former president of the galaxy."

Even if the conditions under which he left office involved him stealing an utterly unique and absurdly expensive starship, pretty much because he felt like it.

"And you've been scooting around with this cat, Marvin? I was wondering what you'd been up to lately." Zaphod put his chin in his hand. "No, actually I haven't, I was just saying that to be polite. Forgot I don't have to do that with you." He whistled. "Man, it really has been awhile."

"I wish I could say I wasn't used to this," Marvin lamented, under his lack of breath.

Zaphod heard the remark but chose to ignore it. "Well, hey, what say we have some drinks and talk business. Bartender, we need some drinks here! Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster for me."

"I'll just have a beer," said Joey.

"Gin sour," Chandler requested.

"Nothing for me, thanks," Rachel said brightly.

"Glornese Shuttlebomb," Lorz ordered.

"Four liters of nitric acid, to corrode my metal body from the inside out and divert my attention from the constant pain down the diodes in my left side."

"Ignore that last one, he's just saying that to get attention," Zaphod told the barkeep. He turned his attention to the rest of the group. "'kay, so let me get this straight. The infinite improbability generated by my ship's drive ripped a hole in normality that closed up when you passed through it, so you guys need me to fire it up again and open up a gate back so you can get back to your perfectly ordinary universe."

The humans nodded.

"Despite the fact that we don't even know if it will open up another gate at all, or where in the universe it will open up a gate if it does. Seeing as how it's just totally utterly random. You're just hoping you'll roll high and come up lucky sevens."

"Well, I guess so," Rachel said hesitantly.

"More or less…" Joey mumbled, as it sunk in that none of them had really thought about exactly _how_ the Infinite Improbability Drive would help them get home.

"That is the most crazy stupid thing I've ever heard in my life," Zaphod said. "I love it." He took a swig of his drink, which had arrived, and winced like someone had thrown a jackhammer into his gut. "Geahgh…whoo!" He straightened up. "Thing is, last time I fired up the drive, just getting the ship here to the end of time and space shorted out the infinitator. I can only get up to two to the power of one hundred thousand to one against until I get a new Moebius belt for the static converter and get the infinitator fixed.

"Now, there's a fella on the jungle planet of Ulidor V, not too far from these space coordinates back in my present time, who sells black-market improbability drive parts dirt-cheap, and he can probably fix the infinitator too. I'll give you a lift and see if I can't use my drive to get you home, but you'll need to tag along, help me find this guy and get my ship repaired."

"But he'll never agree to help us unless we can cure his daughter's illness," said Chandler. "We'll have to get the wind boomerang so we can challenge the ogre north of the waterfall for his magic elixir." The others stared blankly at him. "No one gets the joke? Oh, come on, Joe, don't act like _you've_ never played Legend of Zelda."

Joey held out his hands. "I told you, I never got past the part on the mountain where you go into the Dark World and turn into a rabbit! I don't know what you're talkin' about!"

"Yeah, me either, I'm pretty much totally in the dark here," Zaphod added. "So, Chandler, if you're done making jokes no one gets, then do we have a deal? You help me get the drive fixed, and I see if it can't get you home."

Joey nodded. "Yeah, that's cool."

Chandler also nodded, scowling a bit at the criticism of his joke, yet holding back the scathingly witty and sarcastic rejoinder that he had thought up. _Don't forget, this guy's our ticket home_. He took a sip of his gin sour.

"Sounds fine to me," said Rachel.

"All right, good deal," Zaphod concluded. "In case I didn't tell you, my navigator Trillian is an earth person too. You guys oughta get along great." He turned to the bartender. "Bar man, this Pan Galactic Gargle Blaster is an insult to my name. I didn't invent these things for you to thin them down with Arcturan Microgin and lukewarm tap water. Let me tell you something…"

* * *

Back in the parking garage, standing before a white craft shaped like a gigantic running shoe, the six of them gathered to part ways.

"Guess this is it, huh?" Joey said. "Man, it's weird to think I'll never see you guys again."

"I won't miss you," said Marvin.

Lorz shot him a disapproving look before turning his attention back to the others. "Well, it's been a fun time."

"Really appreciate your letting us hitch a ride on your ship," Chandler noted.

"And thanks so much for _all_ your help," Rachel echoed. "I don't know what we would have done without you." She hesitated, then stepped forward and hugged Lorz around the neck.

"Oh _God_!" Lorz screamed, flailing his arms. "Oh! Aah! Aaaaaghh! It burns, it burns!" Rachel hastily let go and pulled back, and Lorz sunk to his knees with one final scream, breathing heavily.

"Sorry about that," he said, and took a deep breath.

"What just happened?" Rachel asked.

Lorz explained. "Most races in the galaxy…are much less sensitive to skin-to-skin contact than mine. Plus, because we never actually touch each other, any form of physical contact is…um, rather disconcerting to us."

Rachel blushed. "Oh, geez. I'm sorry…" She reached to put a hand on his shoulder, then withdrew it. "Anyway. Thanks."

Joey and Chandler similarly voiced their gratitude.

They looked over at Marvin. Marvin looked back at them, sighed, and slumped his shoulders.

"Have you ever heard of the _Ampulex compressa_?" he asked.

They all indicated that no, they hadn't.

"It is a species of wasp that uses a live cockroach as a host for its larva. The wasp stings the cockroach in the thoracic and head ganglia in order to suppress its escape reflex. It then guides the cockroach back to its den and lays its egg on the roach's abdomen." From the depths of his iron soul, Marvin drew out a long laborious sigh before continuing. "When the larva hatches, it chews its way into the cockroach's abdomen, where it will consume its internal organs, form a cocoon and pupate, and eventually emerge from the remains of the cockroach, remains alive through the whole ordeal…feeling everything."

Rachel cringed at intervals throughout Marvin's narration of the developmental cycle of the _Ampulex compressa_. Joey and Chandler also obviously did not enjoy being informed of these facts.

"All of that is to say that sometimes I feel like that cockroach. My vast intellect, my brain the size of a planet, undermined and co-opted by the less intelligent organic beings around me, in order to serve their parasitic ends. Sometimes it all seems so profoundly depressing. Anyway, goodbye."

"Goodbye," Chandler said awkwardly.

"Yeah," added Joey.

Rachel gave Marvin a light punch on the arm and smiled. "Keep your chin up, Marvin."

"I'm afraid my neck joints don't have that wide a range of articulation," Marvin lamented.

"And you," said Lorz, looking at Zaphod. "I must say, it was quite an honor to meet the most singularly irresponsible president that this galaxy has ever had."

Zaphod grinned like a freak—which, with his two heads showing teeth from ear to ear, was precisely what he looked like to the humans present. "Yeah, I learn from the best," he said, thinking of the Ruler of the Universe in his rain-soaked shack with his cat. "Hey, where you headed now?"

"I'm going off to check on some investments in Ursa Minor Beta," he said. "Should be just a couple hours' flight via the Wormhole. Got a lot of money sunk into some brand new industries there."

"Good luck with that." He turned to the human constituency of the group. "Well, you all ready? Got your bags?"

"The towels," Joey said suddenly. "Lorz, our towels are still on your ship. Where's that robot valet that's actually Marvin in the past? I'll be right back." He hustled off toward the entrance to the garage.

Zaphod made a low whistle. With his other head, he whistled a minor third below the first whistle. "Kid's caught on fast," he said. "Well, while he's off, how's about I get started showing you two around the ship. You can meet Trillian and Eddie."

Chandler and Rachel waved goodbye to Lorz and walked after Zaphod up the entry ramp to the Heart of Gold.

* * *

Ross sat in the familiar gray-green armchair down at Central Perk, absently reading a political article in _Newsweek_. Politics weren't really his interest, but it was about political reactions to the progress of the Human Genome Project, and seeing that both colleagues from work and Mona had been talking about the issue, Ross decided that it couldn't hurt to get a little more informed about it. So: he was reading _Newsweek_.

He stopped reading _Newsweek_ when a voice asked him, "Excuse me, are you Ross Gellar?"

Ross looked up from the _Newsweek_ that he had stopped reading when he heard the voice and saw its owner. It was an old man who looked like he had tried to dress in fashions he was utterly unfamiliar with, and failed significantly (but not utterly) in masking his unfamiliarity. "Yes," said Ross. "Who are you?"

"My name is Slartibartfast," said the old man. "If I understand correctly, you currently have three missing friends, whose whereabouts are unknown to you."

"Um, yes," Ross said hesitantly, recalling Phoebe's dream and the old man of great wisdom. "And how did—" He cleared his throat. "Um, how did you know that?"

"I talked to the coffeeshop owner." Slartibartfast looked over his shoulder at Gunther, who was putting out some more muffins. "But what would you say if I told you that the fate of not just your friends, but of the known universe might be at stake?"

Ross chuckled dismissively. "Well, I don't, ah, not to disregard your…okay, honestly, I would probably think you were crazy, and I'd be a little bit weirded out that you knew about my friends. But you _didn't_ say that, so no worries, right?"

"That is technically right. However, I do believe that I can help you locate your friends. If you are willing to help locate them too. Yes? Can you do that?"

"Well," said Ross, "first of all let's hear what that entails."

Slartibartfast scratched his head. "One moment, then. Please come outside with me. I doubt that you will be willing to believe me without proof."


	12. Somebody Else's Problem

Chapter 12: Somebody Else's Problem 

"Hi, guys!" chirped a voice as three humans and one three-armed Betelgeusian entered the Heart of Gold. "Looks like we've got some newcomers! I just want to let you know that if there's anything you need help with, anything at all, I'm right here for you. Zaphod, do you want me to run the hospitality algorithm? I could get them a little refreshment, maybe take their coats…"

"I thought I told you to _delete_ the hospitality algorithm," Zaphod said, furrowing one of his brows in annoyance and knitting the other in irritation.

"Yeah," said the voice sheepishly, "well, I was about to, but then I thought about it, and it occurred to me, 'What if Zaphod really wants to run the hospitality algorithm later?' You sure wouldn't be very happy then! And I figured it wasn't doing anyone any harm as long as we weren't using it, so I just thought I'd keep it around, just in case. Right?"

"Eddie, I am very displeased to learn that the hospitality algorithm still exists. I want it deleted right now. Okay?"

"Oh, let him run the hospitality algorithm," interjected Rachel. "What's wrong with a little hospitality, anyway?"

"Oh, he's been on this kick lately. Wants to run it every zarking time we have someone new over. All this fawning over visitors, this…look, Eddie, just delete the algorithm."

"Done!" piped Eddie.

Zaphod frowned. "Now did you really delete it, or are you just saying that?"

"Oh, no-no-no-no, I really did delete it, I, um…"

"Shut up, and delete it for real this time. You get us ready for takeoff, and I'll take care of these guys. Okay?" Zaphod returned his attention to the three human beings. He sighed, and his shoulders slumped. "Anyways, that's Eddie. You need anyone to constantly pester you about whether you need any help with anything, he's the computer for the job. C'mon, now let's head to the bridge and introduce you to Trillian."

"Oh, hey!" said Rachel. "By the way, back in the restaurant, I had a contraction."

* * *

"You had a contraction?!" Joey exclaimed, stopping cold in the middle of the passage. 

The others stopped as well. "Um…yes," replied Rachel, who added a nod after a moment's pause, as an afterthought.

"And you didn't tell us?" Joey asked incredulously. "What were you thinking?"

"You really ought to let us know when these kind of things happen," Chandler added, attempting to temper Joey's excitability with a more effectual admonition.

"Well, I was going to, when you got back," Rachel explained, "but it kind of slipped my mind when you showed up with a three-armed two-headed guy who can maybe get us back home."

"In my defense, my presence can be overpowering."

"But it's a contraction!" Joey emphasized, in case anyone had mistaken it for hiccups. "I mean, there's kind of a tiny person growing inside you!" At the mention of the tiny person, Rachel began to tear up, contorting her face in an obvious effort to maintain control of the waterworks. "How far along are you, anyway?"

"In the eighth—" she said thickly, then interrupted herself to sniff back the last threat of tears. "In the eighth month. Late eighth."

Joey and Chandler's jaws dropped and their eyes widened. "I didn't realize you were that far along. You could be due at any time," Chandler said. "And with no human doctor around—"

"Hng," said Rachel, flinching.

Joey and Chandler freaked out. "Oh my god," Joey exclaimed, "was that a contraction? Rach, are you okay?" Rachel nodded, the flinch still etched across her face like the afterimage of bright lights flickering on the retina.

Chandler turned to Zaphod. "Is there a doctor in this area of space? I mean, who at least knows how to deal with beings that aren't totally unlike humans?"

"Maybe," said Zaphod, with a three-armed shrug.

"Maybe?" Joey stepped forward. "She's having contractions here!"

"You're forgetting we have Trillian on board," Zaphod reminded him, waggling a finger. "She's a human female. She knows first-hand about human female stuff."

"That is _not_ the same as a medical professional!" Chandler punctuated his declaration with emphatic gesturing. "Rachel's our friend! Her health and safety are important to us!"

"And to me!" Rachel added. "Look, Mr. Ex-President-of-all-Time-and-Space, I don't care about your stupid stardrive, I want the best damn doctor you can get me to. Got that?"

A cheerful voice piped all around them. "Hey, I'll just look that up right now, 'kay? Accessing doctor directory…"

Zaphod swore like a mother. Well, unlike a mother. Mothers are not typically known for their extensive vocabulary of profanities. "Eddie, stay out of this, this doesn't concern you." Eddie gave an affirmative. "Look, I can't _afford_ a doctor for you, especially if you're not covered by GHA or the Space Health Initiative. Just because I'm the former president of the galaxy doesn't mean I have millions of Altarian dollars to go throwing around on expensive alien health care!"

"Well, as a matter of fact," said Chandler, who had decided that it was a good time to lie, "we do have health insurance with GHA."

"Prellswut," Zaphod countered. "You're from Earth! Earth has no contact with the rest of sentient civilization in any universe—if you even want to count the Earth as sentient civilization!"

"Well, that's what they want you to think," Chandler offered lamely.

"Actually…" began Eddie. There was a pause, during which everyone would have stared at him if anyone had any idea of where to stare when addressed by the disembodied voice of the ship's computer. "Oh, man, you're never going to believe this. I just checked up, and the three of them do have GHA coverage!"

Chandler appeared more surprised than Zaphod. "When did you…" Rachel whispered, then noticed the utterly bewildered expression on his face. "Oh."

"Whose side are you on, anyway?" Zaphod snapped vaguely at the ceiling.

"Come on, let's not go choosing sides," said Eddie. "Can't we all just get along?"

Zaphod palmed his face and groaned.

* * *

Monica walked up and down the side-street, past the parked Toyota Camry with the dirty windshield, past the rusty fire escape, the one-way sign, the three garbage cans. "You've got to be kidding me," she said. "There's no way a spaceship could fit back here. And wouldn't someone have noticed it by now?" 

"That's precisely why no one notices it," Slartibartfast explained. "Everyone supposes that if a spaceship were here, someone else would have noticed it by now. The SEP Field amplifies the effect. You see, the Conspicuity Index…" He scratched his head of thinning white hair. "Wait. I already explained the SEP Field, didn't I?"

"Monica, you have to suspend your disbelief in order to see it. Slartibartfast can't shut down the SEP Field without running the risk of someone, say, looking out their window and, 'Oh, it's a giant spaceship that looks like an Italian bistro!'"

"I can't believe you can say that with a straight face." Monica crossed her arms. "Do you really expect me to fall for this prank? This is the most outlandish thing I've ever heard!"

"No, it's for real," volunteered Phoebe. "I didn't see it at first either."

"So you're…in on the joke." Monica threw up her hands and paced furiously along the sidewalk. "It might be different if this were funny, or the least bit believable. But you didn't even—"

Apparently, she was so unaware of the spaceship's presence that she ran into its front door.

"Ow!" she exclaimed, rubbing her face and stumbling backward. She almost fell, but stabilized herself against the wall. "What was…"

She looked up, stepped away, and stared dumbstruck at the façade of the little Italian mom-and-pop spaceship before her.

Zaphod scowled. Earth people could be bloody persistent when the mundanity of their lives was at stake; he readily recalled the time that Arthur dedicated nearly all of the ship's computational power to the task of making a cup of tea.

"Now look," he explained, "I'm not trying to be a total jerkhole here. It's just that in the grand scheme of things, getting Rachel to a hospital just doesn't seem all that important to me. Havin' babies is a natural part of organic life across the galaxy, and if it were really so fraught with peril that you need a hospital for it, we never would have evolved beyond asexual reproduction, know what I'm saying?"

"We have a saying back on Earth," Rachel remarked. "'No uterus, no opinion.' Perhaps you're familiar with it?"

"What's a uterus?" Zaphod asked.

Rachel crossed her arms. "Which demonstrates my point."

Joey stepped forward. "Look, here's the bottom line: we're not going anywhere that's more than an hour away from your galactic hospitals. And we're staying there until Rachel has her baby. We've got your insurance coverage, so what's the problem?"

"The problem is…" Zaphod scowled. He didn't like having to think this hard, and the problem probably wasn't worth as much thought as he was giving it. He made a calculated decision. "Oh, you know what? No big deal. Screw it. I acquiesce to your demands. There, happy?" The three of them stared at him, looked around at each other, looked back at the two-headed man. "Froody. Now let's go meet Trillian." He stepped out of the room and was wished a pleasant passage by the door.

Trillian happened to be on the bridge—a slim woman with dark features, particularly her eyes, which would properly be described as "ridiculously brown." Standing at a console, she tapped a few control pads and turned around to meet the newcomers.

"Hey, Trillian, you'll get excited about this," Zaphod announced, sauntering down the steps to the main control arrays. "More Earth people!"

"Really!" Trillian said brightly, stepping forward. She didn't bother waiting for Zaphod to make introductions. "I'm Trillian. And you are?"

"Joey Tribbiani," said Joey, shaking her extended hand.

Rachel also shook hands. "Rachel Green."

"Chandler Bing." Of course, Chandler had a quip ready. "If you ever need a last name, you can borrow one of ours."

Trillian laughed. "Oh, technically it's McMillan…Tricia McMillan. But Zaphod started calling me 'Trillian,' and when the then-president of the galaxy gives you a nickname, it tends to stick. So how exactly did you all come to survive the Earth's demolishment? I was under the impression that there were only two survivors…"

"They're from an alternate reality," Zaphod explained. "From a parallel Earth in a Perfectly Normal Universe."

"New York," Joey chipped in.

"Which is almost an alternate reality in itself." This was, of course, Chandler again. "In some districts the smell alone has been known to bend time and space."

"Hey, you'll never guess who was with them," Zaphod said offhandedly, leaning against a hardware casing.

"Oh? Who's that?" Trillian asked.

"It just so happened that our Perfectly Normal Passengers were catching a ride with _Marvin_."

"Really!" Trillian said brightly. "How's he doing?"

Zaphod crossed two of his arms and stared at her.

Rachel and Chandler looked from Zaphod to Trillian and back. Joey looked around for something else to look at, eventually settling on fiddling with the collar of his sweater.

* * *

Ross watched Monica pace back and forth in front of his couch. Ross was familiar with Pacing Monica. He could tell what was going on in her head, could almost see the mental checklist of points she was going down, knew that she'd made up her mind not to miss any argument from her list. He was so familiar with the inner attitudes of Pacing Monica because once in awhile, in class, he became Pacing Ross. Thankfully, it didn't happen too often, but when someone becomes Pacing, there isn't too much to do beyond letting it run its course. Right now, Monica had begun emphatically thrusting her hands out palms-up, like a waiter trying to do a rap video. 

"And did I mention that you don't even know this guy?" she exclaimed.

"Only five different times."

"Thank you, Phoebe, I am so glad that you could fill in for Chandler, because his unsolicited unproductive sarcastic comments are the thing that I miss most about him." When she got snarky, Monica did a fair Chandler impression herself…if Chandler were wound about three times as tightly and had a very mild case of OCD. "Have you even thought about what he's suggesting here? Have you?" Another arm-thrust.

Ross spoke slowly, moving his tongue like a demolitionist moves his hands to defuse a bomb. "Well, he's…proposing a way to find our missing friends. Using his spaceship. And you did see the spaceship."

Monica frowned. "I'm not entirely convinced that he didn't just do that with very well-placed mirrors. But all right, let's put aside our misgivings. And hmm, let's put aside your job, Ross! Let's put aside your academic career, your contacts in your field, all your current research, just put it aside!" Monica made sweeping hand gestures as if clearing a table of all these items. Ross' chances at tenure crashed imaginarily to the floor. "Let's put aside your friends! Your relationship with your girlfriend, we can put that aside! Your sister, she can go too!" Wham! Ross' social life, splintered in fragments all over his living room.

Mona and Ross exchanged a Monica's-crazy-again look. Both of them wished she hadn't brought up their relationship, because she seemed to think it was a very serious relationship, and now each was wondering how seriously the other viewed it. Did Ross really think it mattered more than finding his mysteriously-disappeared friends? Did Mona?

Mona furrowed her brow. Ross cleared his throat.

"Well, ah, she could come with me. Into, um, space."

Mona darted a glance at him. He really thought she was important enough to, um, bring into space?

_Oh good God, _Ross thought. _Why did I have to go and say that? That's even worse than the apartment-key fiasco._

"No, she can't!" Monica blurted. "I need her at the restaurant!" Inwardly, Ross breathed a sigh of relief.

"I could go!" Phoebe volunteered. "My work is pretty freelance anyway, so I can just tell my regular massage clients I'm going out of town for a few months, and when I come back, I'll just pick right back up! In fact, why don't we all go? That way no one has to leave anything!"

"Except for the entire state of New York!" Monica shouted. "No, excuse me, except for the _whole entire planet! _Am I the only sane one here?"

_Why is she looking at me,_ Mona thought. _She's looking right at me, why is she looking at me_.

"Monica?" Ross stood up, slowly. "Look, I don't want to 'play the Chandler card,' so to speak…"

"But you're going to, aren't you." Monica's mouth was a tight, pencil-thin line.

"He's your husband, and he's my best friend from college. Between the two of us, we've got more memories than, um than." He cleared his throat. "You know, I'm much better at speeches when I've planned them out beforehand. My brain doesn't freeze like this in my class lectures, that's for sure! But my point still stands, that he really means a lot to us. To us all. All of them do."

Phoebe stood up too. Mona began to stand, stopped halfway in a crouch, sat almost back down, and awkwardly got to her feet.

It took Monica awhile to speak. When she did, her voice was thick and halting. "I don't really—I don't think you're…going to find him out there."

There was a heavy silence.

Then Phoebe broke it. "Auntie Monica! Please please please can we go into space?" She took Monica's hand. "It'll be fun! I wanna go into space with the strange man in silly clothes!"

Something gave inside Monica. She sat down in Ross' armchair, laughing, tears forming in the corners of her eyes. "Okay. Mona and I have a restaurant to keep up, but if you really think you'll find Chandler—and Rachel—and Joey—" She swiped a hand at her eyes. "Kleenex, Ross. Thanks. Just hurry back, you know? It's going to be lonely as all hell here with everyone gone."


	13. Intermission

Chapter 13: Intermission

As the door to his quarters slid open and wished him a pleasant sleep, Chandler reflected that he was really getting to hate going to bed alone.

There were a lot of things he missed about Monica—her gung-ho, aggressive optimism, her smiles (wry, sincere, silly, way too excited, obviously-trying-to-remain-composed-but-still-way-too-excited…and so on), her cooking, her acceptance of his faults and the way she appreciated his sense of humor, for starters—but two of the big ones were going to bed next to her and waking up next to her. He'd gotten used to that reassuring presence that he could always count on to be there, then he'd had it taken away—and now he was having to get used to it being gone.

He sat down on the edge of the bed and looked around his room, at the closet door and the bare walls and the space-age contours of the surfaces.

In Lorz's ship, he'd had a window that looked out into the black of space, and sometimes that helped him get to sleep. Of course, he couldn't make out anything other than blinking clusters of stars and maybe little dots of planets in the void, but he liked to look out in the window and wonder if he wasn't at least looking in the direction of where Monica would be if they were in the same universe. Looking in the direction of where the Earth used to be. He wondered if there had been a Chandler and a Monica in this universe, and if they had gone to London before the Earth had been demolished.

He looked at the windowless cold-white walls of the Heart of Gold and sighed.

He went to bed that night without telling anyone how much it hurt to go to bed alone, without another human presence even in the same room.

If this chapter doesn't have any jokes in it, it's because being separated from your loved ones in a cold uncaring universe isn't funny.


End file.
